Japan-U.S.study on self development and socio-cultural context adolescence

本研究旨在比较日本、日裔美国和英美三种文化背景的学生在自我发展和社会文化背景方面的差异。本研究采用问卷调查的方法，收集了学生和家长的背景、自我能力、导师、重要人物的心理支持以及学生对父母的感受等多方面的信息。1.整体自我价值感、亲密友谊和学业能力/智力领域的自我能力：日本的中学生和大学生对自我能力的评价一直低于他们的文化同行。这一点在中学生尤其是女性中表现得更为明显。2.父母和朋友作为导师的地位：除了英美女性外，朋友在三个文化群体中都是最重要的导师。在日本和日裔美国学生中，同性朋友的得分显著高于异性朋友。另一方面，在英美学生中，跨性别朋友的得分显著高于同性别朋友。在日本和英美学生中，尤其是女性，母亲是另一个重要的指导者。3.重要人物心理支持与自我能力的关系：在各个文化群体中，没有发现对各个能力领域具有一致性的预测因素。然而，我们发现，在女生的情况下，来自同性朋友的心理支持倾向于成为一个显着的预测能力领域。

In this study, we focus to compare three cultural groups-Japanese, Japanese-American and Anglo-American students on self development and socio-cultural context. The questionnaire was designed to collect information about a wide range of topics, including students' and parents' backgrounds, self-competence, mentors, psychological supports from significant persons and students' felling for their parents.1.Perceived self-competence on global self-worth, close friendship and scholastic competence/intellectual ability domains : Japanese middle school students and college students consistently rated their self-competence lower than their cultural counterparts. This tends to be clear in case of middle school students, especially those of females.2.parents' and friends' positions as mentors : Freinds were most important mentor in three cultural groups except Anglo-American females. In the case of Japanese and Japanese-American students, same gender friend showed significantly higher scores than cross gender freind. On the other hand, cross gender freind showed significantly higher scores than same gender freind in Anglo-American students. In the case of Japanese and Anglo-American students, especially females, mother was another important mentor.3.Relation between perceived psychological support from significant person and perceived self-competence : Consistent predictors to each competence domains were not found in each cultural groups. We found, however, that in case of female students psychological support from same gender freind tended to become a significant predictor to the competence domains.