Asian American client adherence to Asian cultural values, counselor expression of cultural values, couselor ethnicity, and career counseling process.

Abstract

This study investigated the relationships among client adherence to Asian cultural values, counselor expression of cultural values, counselor ethnicity, and career counseling process with Asian American college students. Clients who had high adherence to Asian cultural values evaluated Asian American counselors as more empathic and credible than did clients with low adherence to Asian values, and clients who had low adherence to Asian cultural values evaluated European American counselors as more empathic than did clients with high adherence to Asian values. Contrary to expectations, clients rated the session with a European American counselor as more positive and arousing than the session with an Asian American counselor. Limitations and implications of the results are discussed. Recognizing the growing number of ethnic minorities in the United States and their tendency to prematurely terminate from counseling services, multicultural counseling researchers have increasingly examined the relationships among cultural variables, such as acculturation and ethnic identity, and the quality of counseling process (Atkinson, Morten, & Sue, 1998; Sue, 1990). One particular group of people that has received attention in this endeavor has been Asian Americans. As of 2000, there were over 10.2 million Asian Americans in the United States, representing 3.6% of the total population (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2001). These numbers represent an increase of 46% since 1990, making Asian Americans the second fastest growing ethnic group in the United States (after Hispanic Americans). Given these statistics, it is likely that there will be greater demands in the future from Asian Americans for culturally relevant and sensitive psychological services. In addition, because Asian Americans comprise individuals ranging from those whose ancestors immigrated to the United States in the 1850s to those whose parents immigrated to the United States after the passing of the Immigration Act of 1965 and those who have immigrated just recently, the need to account for within-group factors that are related to the quality of counseling process is especially salient. The goal of the present study was to investigate the relationships among three cultural factors, client adherence to Asian cultural values, counselor’s expression of cultural values and counselor ethnicity, and the quality of career counseling process.