F. Ishu Ishiyama

Optimising conditions for learning sociocultural competencies for success

Abstract Culturally different recent immigrants and sojourners lack familiarity with the social values, roles, and rules governing interpersonal relationships and this may hinder the attainment of their goals for career and educational success in the new country despite their qualifications and dedication. This paper identifies a number of psychosocial barriers to developing social competence in a different culture, including lack of coaching and practice opportunities, cross-cultural interpersonal anxiety, threat to the newcomers original cultural identity, and various personal factors. The paper further discusses how integrating instructional implications from established models of operant and classical conditioning, and social cognitive learning in a role-based group training program, can address these potential psychosocial barriers and provide optimal conditions for learning intercultural social skills.

What Helps and What Hinders in Cross-Cultural Clinical Supervision: A Critical Incident Study

This study investigated what helped and what hindered in cross-cultural supervision. The participants were 25 visible minority graduate students and early counseling professionals. They were individually interviewed according to an expanded version of Flanagan’s critical incident technique. The most frequently cited positive themes were subsumed in five key areas: (a) personal attributes of the supervisor, (b) supervision competencies, (c) mentoring, (d) relationship, and (e) multicultural supervision competencies. The most frequently reported negative themes were grouped into five areas: (a) personal difficulties as a visible minority, (b) negative personal attributes of the supervisor, (c) lack of a safe and trusting relationship, (d) lack of multicultural supervision competencies, and (e) lack of supervision competencies. The results support a person-centered mentoring model of effective supervision.

Overwork and career-centered self-validation among the Japanese: Psychosocial issues and counselling implications

Overwork and workaholism among Japanese corporate workers and related psychosocial issues are explored. Ishiyamas (1989) model of self-validation is used as a conceptual framework. The Japanese culture and the corporate structure are treated as the context in which social pressure for overwork and obsessive work-preoccupation are espoused. The authors examine the nature and consequences of overwork and career-centered self-validation, in terms of family, marital, and existential issues, as well as stress andkaroshi (death by overwork). Implications to counselling and social and systemic change are discussed.

Understanding Foreign Adolescents' Difficulties in Cross-Cultural Adjustment: A Self-Validation Model:

A model of self-validation is presented in this paper to explore and understand the nature of cross-cultural adjustment difficulties and feelings of loss and homesickness. Many young immigrants and foreign students go through painful experiences of cultural and personal disorientation and uprootedness in a new, unfamiliar environment. When they move from their homelands, they also leave behind some of the significant sources of self-validation which used to provide positive feelings and a sense of self-worth and meaning in life. Five interrelated psychological themes are discussed with case illustrations: (1) security, comfort, and support; (2) self-worth and self-acceptance; (3) competence and autonomy, (4) identity and belonging; and (5) love, fulfillment, and meaning in life. Social reinforcement, communication and social skills and multicultural awareness are also discussed as factors contributing to successful self-validation and relationship building between foreign students and host nationals.A model of self-validation is presented in this paper to explore and understand the nature of cross-cultural adjustment difficulties and feelings of loss and homesickness. Many young immigrants and foreign students go through painful experiences of cultural and personal disorientation and uprootedness in a new, unfamiliar environment. When they move from their homelands, they also leave behind some of the significant sources of self-validation which used to provide positive feelings and a sense of self-worth and meaning in life. Five interrelated psychological themes are discussed with case illustrations: (1) security, comfort, and support; (2) self-worth and self-acceptance; (3) competence and autonomy, (4) identity and belonging; and (5) love, fulfillment, and meaning in life. Social reinforcement, communication and social skills and multicultural awareness are also discussed as factors contributing to successful self-validation and relationship building between foreign students and host nationals.

Youth and culture: A seventeen nation study of perceived problems and coping strategies

JANICE T. GIBSON, MARVIN J. WESTWOOD, F. ISHU ISHIYAMA, WILLIAM A. BORGEN, SUSAN M. SHOWALTER, QASEM AL-SARRAF, SEMIHA A. ATAKAN, ISAURA R.F. GUIMARES, A. LINA GUISTI-ORTIZ, MARGARET ROBERTSON, BENJAMIN SHAFRIR, PETER DE WEERDT, GUNDELINA A. VELAZCO, CAROL E. BAKER, MARIA DIKAIOU, TATIANA GABAY, LINA KASHYUP, ILONA LEE, MARIA E. FELCE DI PAULA, HILLMAN NGUNANGWA & NINA F. TALYZINA University of Pittsburgh, School of Education, Forbes Quadrangle, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA

Fear of Success Consequence Scale: Measurement of Fear of Social Consequences of Academic Success:

An 18-item fear of consequences of success scale was developed and administered to 381 high school students. The scale has three subscales which measure (a) fear of negative peer reactions, (b) fear of compliments, and (c) fear of increased responsibility and expectations for continuous success as possible consequences of academic success. The scale evidenced an internal consistency reliability coefficient (Cronbach a) of .90 and significant item-total correlations (.50 ∼ .73), with a test-retest coefficient of .64 over 8 wk. Girls scored significantly higher on all the subscale and the total scores than did boys. The younger groups were more fearful about social consequences of success than were the older groups. Differences among the three grades were also significant. Possible research is mentioned.

Development and validation of a self-critical cognition scale.

A 13-item Self-critical Cognition scale was developed to measure a self-critical and self-defeating cognitive tendency in processing self-relevant information. The scale, administered to 561 male and female university students, evidenced high internal consistency (α = .89) and test-retest reliability of r138 = .83 over a 6.5-week interval. A factor analysis yielded a most interpretable 2-factor solution, Factor 1: negative self-processing and Factor 2: failure in positive self-processing. The scales construct validity was supported by meaningful correlations of –.71 with Rosenbergs self-esteem, .43 with Watson and Friends social anxiety and distress, .62 with Cheek and Busss shyness, .57 with Watson and Friends fear of negative evaluation, .42 with Beck and Beamesderfers depression, and .34 with negative adjective counts in spontaneous adjective listing in a self-descriptive task. Use of the scale for experimental and clinical research is suggested.

CORRELATIONS AMONG THREE MEASURES OF FEAR OF SUCCESS

Three instruments, scales by Pappo, Good and Good, and Zuckerman and Allison, which purport to measure fear of success, were administered to 89 university students. For the total sample, and for females alone, all correlations among scale scores were positive and significant. Small to moderate correlations among scores on the three scales were higher for females than for males, although mean scores for men and women did not differ significantly.

Development and Preliminary Validation of the Stereotypic Beliefs Inventory

This paper describes the development and preliminary validation of a Stereotypic Beliefs Inventory, a measure of individual differences in the extent to which English-speaking Canadians hold Stereotypic beliefs about cultural or ethnic outgroups. A Stereotypic belief is the belief that members of cultural or ethnic outgroups differ systematically in specific personality characteristics from members of cultural or ethnic ingroups. This scale is the only currently available measure of ethnic stereotyping that has been shown to be unaffected by socially desirable responses in Canada.

Finding the door: Critical incidents facilitating gang exit among indigenous men.

OBJECTIVE Our aim was to generate a categorical scheme to describe how participants exited from gang life. METHOD We utilized the CIT (Butterfield, Borgen, Amundson, & Maglio, 2005; Flanagan, 1954; Woolsey, 1986) and explored gang exit processes among 10 Indigenous men living in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada. Participants responded to the question: What facilitated gang exit for you? RESULTS They provided 136 critical incidents that were organized into 13 categories of behaviors and experiences that facilitated their exit from gang life: (a) working in the legal workforce, (b) accepting support from family or girlfriend, (c) helping others stay out of gang life, (d) not wanting to go back to jail, (e) accepting responsibility for family, (f) accepting guidance and protection, (g) participating in ceremony, (h) avoiding alcohol, (i) publically expressing that you were out of the gang, (j) wanting legit relationships outside gangs, (k) experiencing a native brotherhood, (l) stopping self from reacting like a gangster, and (m) acknowledging the drawbacks of gang violence. CONCLUSION The categorical scheme is presented, described with use of extensive quotes from this research, theoretical and clinical implications are discussed, and suggestions for future research are offered. (PsycINFO Database Record