Intercultural self concept and coping behavior : Asian and American Caucasian graduate students

Graduation date: 1982The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships and the differences between the self-concept and the coping\ud behavior of two selected groups of graduate students namely, foreign-born\ud Asians and American Caucasians who were enrolled in graduate\ud school of Oregon State University during the 1981-82 academic year.\ud The secondary purposes of the study were:\ud 1. to ascertain the cultural effect on the self-concept\ud and the coping behavior and\ud 2. to determine the possible directions of causation\ud between two variables.\ud Hypothesis 1. There is no significant difference between the\ud mean scores for the two cultures.\ud Hypothesis 2. There is no significant difference between the\ud mean socres for male and female. Hypothesis 3. There is no significant interaction effect\ud between the mean scores of the levels of sex and cultures.\ud Procedure\ud The samples were randomly selected from the computer list of\ud the American-Caucasian graduate students; 70 males and 67 females.\ud The foreign-born Asians were randomly drawn from the foreign students\ud list obtained from the foreign student office, 69 males and 64 females.\ud The Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (TSCS) and the Myers-Briggs\ud Type Indicator were used. The mean scores of P (Self-Concept) on\ud the TSCS was used as the measure of self-concept, the C (Personal\ud Self) and E (Social Self) were used to test the correlation coefficient. The E (Extraversion), the I (Introversion), J (Judgment)\ud and P (Perception) on the MBTI were utilized as the measure of coping\ud or adjusting behavior.\ud A total of seven (7) dependent variables were included in\ud the study. Mean scores in each subtest were analyzed, using two-way\ud analysis of variance procedures. The Pearson Product Moment Corre\ud lation Coefficient was utilized to measure the relationships of\ud self-concept and coping or adjusting behavior.\ud Conclusion\ud Based upon the results of this study, the following conclusions\ud were drawn:\ud 1. There was no significant differences among the two cultures -\ud namely the American-Caucasian and the foreign-born Asian graduate students in concept or the.abilities to cope or to adjust to their environment. 2. There were no significant differences in abilities to use\ud judging or perceptive attitude for dealing with environment between\ud the males and females among both American-Caucasian and foreign-born\ud Asian graduate students. There were significant differences exhibited\ud between the male and female graduate students related to their self-concept,.\ud personal self, social self, and the ability to cope with or\ud to adjust to the environment.\ud 3. There were significant differences between the American-\ud Caucasian and the foreign-born Asian in judging or perceptive attitude\ud for dealing with environment.\ud The finding concluded that all humans are similar by nature in\ud the fact that they are capable, intelligent and flexible. They have\ud similar abilities to cope with or adjust to the past, which would be\ud the culture force; the present, which is the environment force, and\ud conclude their abilities to construct for the future to come