The Impact of Social Support on Social Identity Development and Well-Being in International Exchange Students

International exchanges have become increasingly common. Although it is an explicit goal of exchange programs that exchange students immerse in another culture and learn to feel like a local, there is no systematic research on the development of one’s social identity during the exchange year. A longitudinal study with German high school students who spend an exchange year in the United States investigates the trajectories of social identification, identity integration of primary and secondary cultural identities, and well-being longitudinally at three measurement times (before departure, N = 556, 3 months, N = 210, and 6 months after arrival, N = 178). As social support is suggested to be an important resource, multilevel analyses tested the impact of three subcomponents of social support (i.e., emotional, instrumental, and compatibility-informational support) on the individual trajectories. It was found that social identification and identity integration increased over time, whereas well-being was high across all times. Identity integration mediated the positive effect of social identification on well-being. Moreover, emotional support was positively related to well-being and compatibility-informational support was positively related to identity integration. Instrumental support fostered early identity integration but diminished its slope when applied at later times. The present data demonstrate that an exchange year stimulates the development of the social self-concept, which is relevant for well-being. Moreover, it shows that the right kind of social support at the right time can foster this development.