Out of Sync: How Japanese International Students and American Students Misread Each Other
Document Type Article
Abstract
The effects of cultural values and perceptions of cultural values on social support and acculturative stress are examined in this study. Japanese international students and American students at Salve Regina University participated. Somewhat surprisingly, Japanese and American participants were shown to have similar individualist cultural values, and the American participants scored significantly higher than the Japanese participants on the collectivist values scale. Additionally, the American students’ perceived that the Japanese students would score higher on the collectivist scale than they actually did, and the Japanese students were found to believe that the American students would score higher than the Japanese participants on the individualism scale. This study shows that cultural values are changing probably due to globalization, and its findings suggest that stereotypes about cultural values may be detrimental to Japanese international students' social relations in the United States.