Context of reception, daily-linguistic biculturalism, and depressive symptoms among Hispanic college students

Daily diary studies allow for examining the day-to-day dynamic experiences of biculturalism. The present study used a 12-day daily diary dataset collected with 873 Hispanic college students. Our goal was to (a) identify two distinct forms of dynamic daily processes of linguistic biculturalism (bicultural levels and bicultural fluctuations) and (b) examine the mediating role of bicultural levels and bicultural fluctuations in the association between negative context of reception and depressive symptoms. Results indicated that bicultural levels did not emerge as a construct, because daily levels of English and Spanish language use were not sufficiently intercorrelated. Bicultural fluctuations did emerge at the intersection of English and Spanish language use fluctuations. English language use and bicultural fluctuations mediated the association between negative context of reception and depressive symptoms. Implications for theory and intervention are discussed.