Kimberly A. Noels

Perceptions of Teachers’ Communicative Style and Students’ Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

This study considers how students’ perceptions of their teachers’ communicative style, particularly the extent to which teachers are perceived to support students’ autonomy and to provide useful feedback about students’ learning progress, are related to students’ extrinsic and intrinsic motivational orientations. It also examines the link between these variables and various language learning outcomes, including effort, anxiety, and language competence. Students registered in a summer French immersion course (N = 78) completed a questionnaire that was used to assess the constructs described above. Correlational analyses determined that stronger feelings of intrinsic motivation were related to positive language learning outcomes, including greater motivational intensity, greater self-evaluations of competence, and a reduction in anxiety. Moreover, perceptions of the teacher’s communicative style were related to intrinsic motivation, such that the more controlling and the less informative students perceived the teacher to be, the lower students’ intrinsic motivation was. The implications of perceptions of teacher communicative style for motivation and language learning outcomes are discussed.

Culture-Level Dimensions of Social Axioms and Their Correlates across 41 Cultures

Leung and colleagues have revealed a five-dimensional structure of social axioms across individuals from five cultural groups. The present research was designed to reveal the culture level factor structure of social axioms and its correlates across 41 nations. An ecological factor analysis on the 60 items of the Social Axioms Survey extracted two factors: Dynamic Externality correlates with value measures tapping collectivism, hierarchy, and conservatism and with national indices indicative of lower social development. Societal Cynicism is less strongly and broadly correlated with previous values measures or other national indices and seems to define a novel cultural syndrome. Its national correlates suggest that it taps the cognitive component of a cultural constellation labeled maleficence, a cultural syndrome associated with a general mistrust of social systems and other people. Discussion focused on the meaning of these national level factors of beliefs and on their relationships with individual level factors of belief derived from the same data set.

Learning Spanish as a Second Language: Learners’ Orientations and Perceptions of Their Teachers’ Communication Style

Students in lower-level Spanish classes (N = 322) completed a questionnaire assessing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for learning Spanish, feelings of autonomy and competence regarding language learning, integrative orientation, and perceptions of teachers’ communication style. The results of a path analysis showed that the more controlling the teacher was perceived to be, the less the students felt they were autonomous agents in the learning process, and the lower was students’ intrinsic motivation. Integrative orientation was found to be related to intrinsic motivation, although it independently predicted effort and persistence and was the stronger predictor of various intergroup variables. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for multiple motivational substrates and the importance of teachers’ communication style for students’ motivation.

Language, Identity, and Adjustment The Role of Linguistic Self-Confidence in the Acculturation Process

Research in both cross-cultural psychology and the social psychology of language has examined the changes in identity and language behavior that occur when two ethnolinguistic groups come into contact. This study attempted to integrate these two fields of inquiry through an investigation of the relations between identity, interethnic contact, linguistic self-confidence, and psychological adjustment in 179 Chinese university students. The findings indicated that exclusive identification with either the first or second language group was the most commonly endorsed identity. Correlational and path analyses of the relations between interethnic contact, self-confidence in using the English and Chinese languages, Chinese and Canadian identities, and adjustment variables supported the proposed model in which communication variables mediate the influence of interethnic contact on identity and adjustment. The results are interpreted within the context of current formulations of acculturation and intercultural communication.

Towards a Situated Approach to Ethnolinguistic Identity: The Effects of Status on Individuals and Groups

Much research has been concerned with the relationship between identity, language and the status of ethnolinguistic groups. Likewise, much attention has been devoted to the acculturative consequences of contact between two cultural groups. The present research was an attempt to bring together these two traditions of research within the context of English-French relations in Canada. Accordingly, Francophone and Anglophone students originating from majority and minority settings, attending a Canadian bilingual university were requested to fill out a questionnaire containing indices of identification to first and second language groups. The results showed that, at the individual level, both the immediate and the North American status of the respondents were related to their identity. At the group level, similar results were obtained with the qualification that the ethnolinguistic evolution of status would appear to be of some importance. Finally, important inter-situational variations were noted for all groups, supporting the approach to situated identity adopted here. These results are discussed in terms of their implication for the relationship between language and identity as well as for current theories of acculturation.

Interethnic Contact, Identity, and Psychological Adjustment: The Mediating and Moderating Roles of Communication

Social psychological theories of second-language communication posit a relationship between second-language competence/usage and social identity. Identity and adaptation outcomes of intercultural contact have also been central issues for cross-cultural psychology. The studies described here are at the junction of these two research traditions. Based on a situated-identity approach, they show the mediating and moderating roles of second-language confidence for identity change and adjustment among minority- and majority-group members. Two studies involving Canadian francophone and anglophone university students illustrate the relationship between relative status and identity as well as the mediating role of communication in determining identity and adjustment. The third study, involving participants of East Indian descent, shows that incongruities among aspects of identity are related to the experience of collective discrimination and stress. Furthermore, these relations are moderated by second-language confidence. The conclusion discusses theoretical and practical implications for policy.

General and acculturation‐related daily hassles and psychological adjustment in first‐ and second‐generation South Asian immigrants to Canada

According to Lay and Nguyen (1998), in addition to the general daily hassles encountered by most people, immigrants often face chronic difficulties specific to the acculturation experience, including conflicts with family members, members of the ethnic ingroup, and members of ethnic outgroups. Moreover, it has been suggested that the children of immigrants born in Canada (i.e., second-generation immigrants) may experience different acculturative stressors from their parents (i.e., first-generation immigrants). This study examined general and acculturation-related daily hassles in 74 first- and second-generation South Asians in Canada. Participants completed a questionnaire that assessed their experience of different types of daily hassles (general, family, ingroup, and outgroup), acculturation attitudes, and level of psychological adjustment. Secondgeneration individuals reported significantly more ingroup hassles and marginally lower self-esteem than first-generation immigrants. For first-generation immi...

Individualism, Collectivism, and Authoritarianism in Seven Societies

Building on Hofstedes finding that individualism and social hierarchy are incompatible at the societal level, the authors examined the relationship between individualism-collectivism and orientations toward authority at the individual level. In Study 1, authoritarianism was related to three measures of collectivism but unrelated to three measures of individualism in a U.S. sample (N = 382). Study 2 used Triandiss horizontal-vertical individualism-collectivism framework in samples from Bulgaria, Japan, New Zealand, Germany, Poland, Canada, and the United States (total N = 1,018). Both at the individual level and the societal level of analysis, authoritarianism was correlated with vertical individualism and vertical collectivism but unrelated to horizontal collectivism. Horizontal individualism was unrelated to authoritarianism except in post-Communist societies whose recent history presumably made salient the incompatibility between state authority and self-determination.

Intergenerational Communication Across Cultures: Young People's Perceptions of Conversations with Family Elders, Non-family Elders and Same-Age Peers

Young adults from three Western (Canada, U.S.A., and New Zealand) and three East Asian (The Philippines, South Korea and Japan) nations completed a questionnaire regarding their perceptions of interactions with family elders, non-family elders, and same-age peers. Results showed that East Asians perceived family elders to be as accommodating as same-age peers, whereas Westerners perceived family elders as more accommodating than their same-age peers. Participants in both cultural blocks indicated an obligation to be most deferential towards non-family elders, followed by family elders, followed by same-age peers. Whereas both groups perceived interactions with same-age peers more positively than with the two older groups, the Western group perceived the older age groups more positively than did East Asians. Intergenerational communication is reportedly be more problematic than intragenerational communication and, consistent with previous findings, this pattern is more evident in East Asian nations on some variables.

Elderly perceptions of communication with older and younger adults in China: Implications for mental health

Abstract Research on intergenerational communication has shown that young people often report negative experiences when talking with elderly people who are not family members. Some of this research has recently begun to investigate the Asian Pacific Rim, an area of interest because of its tradition of filial piety. The present study complements this by looking at the other side of the generational coin by investigating elderly peoples views of intergenerational and intra‐generational communication in the Peoples Republic of China. These perceptions are related to informants’ feelings of depression, self‐esteem, and a sense of coherence in life. It was found that other older adults were perceived simultaneously as more nonaccommodative and more accommodative than young adults, and that some communication behaviors of young family members were perceived more positively than both those of elderly peer and young non‐family adults. Results further suggest that some aspects of the intragenerational communicat...