ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Cultural Psychology
This article is part of the Research TopicPsychological Well-being in Indigenous Communities: Traditional Knowledge and Cultural InterventionsView all 4 articles
Cultural Alienation and Psychological Well-being in Mongolian Pre-college Students: A Person-Centered Profiling Study
Provisionally accepted
- Baotou Teachers' College, Baotou, China
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As educational institutions worldwide strive to support minority students' academic success and psychological well-being, understanding the complex dynamics of cultural alienation becomes increasingly crucial. This study examines how cultural alienation—including cultural loneliness, separation, disharmony, and perceived discrimination—influences the psychological adaptation of Mongolian minority precollege students in Inner Mongolia, where institutional practices and social dynamics predominantly reflect Han Chinese cultural norms. A sample of 73 participants completed the Symptom Checklist–90 (SCL–90) and a Cultural Alienation Scale developed for minority-focused bridging programs. Students reported moderate levels of cultural alienation (M = 2.40, SD = 0.48). Analysis revealed significant associations between overall alienation and psychological distress (r = 0.446, p < .001), particularly with obsessive-compulsive tendencies (r = 0.457, p < .001) and paranoid ideation (r = 0.426, p < .001). Multiple regression analyses identified cultural loneliness as the strongest predictor of psychological symptoms across several domains, notably depression and anxiety, consistently surpassing the effects of other alienation dimensions (R² = 0.347 for Depression, p < .001). Using k-means clustering, we identified two distinct groups: a high-alienation cluster (n = 31) reporting substantially greater psychological distress (M = 1.60) compared to their low-alienation peers (M = 1.27), F(1, 71) = 11.57, p < .001, η² = 0.14. These findings highlight cultural loneliness as a critical mechanism in minority students' psychological adaptation, providing empirical support for belongingness theory within cross-cultural educational contexts. By demonstrating that social connection deficits, rather than cultural separation or perceived discrimination, most strongly predict psychological distress, this study extends acculturation theory to emphasize the primacy of relational belonging in cultural transitions. These insights advance broader cultural psychology research on minority adaptation while offering practical implications for developing targeted support systems in minority education programs.
Keywords: Cultural alienation, cultural loneliness, Inner Mongolia, minority education, pre-college students, Psychological adaptation
Received: 23 Oct 2025; Accepted: 09 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Junying Liu
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