Effects of social networks on cross-cultural adjustment 1

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1 Japanese Psychological Research 1997, Volume 39, No. 1, Effects of social networks on cross-cultural adjustment 1 TOMOKO TANAKA Institute for International Education, Hiroshima University, Kagamiyama, Higashihiroshima 739, Japan JIRO TAKAI School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nagoya City University, Yamanohata, Mizuho-cho, Mizuho-ku, Nagoya 467, Japan TAKAYA KOHYAMA Center for School Education Research and Development, Faculty of School Education, Kagamiyama, Higashihiroshima 739, Japan TAKEHIRO FUJIHARA School of Sociology, Kwansei Gakuin University, Uegahara, Nishinomiya 662, Japan HIROFUMI MINAMI Faculty of Education, Kyushu University, Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka , Japan Abstract: A total of 221 responses were obtained from a survey of international students in Japan, regarding the facilitative effects of social network formation on their adjustment. Regression analyses were conducted to explore the relationships among four types of adjustment revealed in a preceding study ( general adjustment, self-control, affiliative and dependent ), network size, demographic variables, expected social support, etc. For each adjustment type, predictive variables were identified. Two of the variables that showed network effects on adjustment were Japanese language proficiency and race (Asians vs. Westerners). From these results, it would appear that social network formation does facilitate adjustment, and insight into the effect of adjustment type and demographic variables on network functions was obtained. Furthermore, the actual conditions regarding network formation of international students in Japan were revealed. Key words: social network, international students, cross-cultural adjustment, social support, network size. Sojourners adjusting to a cross-cultural transition form social networks. From these networks, they receive support and learn appropriate behavior patterns for life in the host culture, and their adjustment is therefore facilitated by such contact. From this perspective, studies were conducted on the effects of interpersonal relationships on the cross-cultural adjustment 1 This research was conducted under a grant provided by the Matsushita International Foundation (representative, Takehiro Fujihara) Japanese Psychological Association. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

2 Effects of social networks on cross-cultural adjustment 13 process. First, we looked at the factorial structure of the adjustment of international students to Japanese culture (Tanaka, Takai, Kohyama, Muranaka, & Fujihara, 1990) and, using these factors, we looked at the differences in adjustment by demographic traits (Tanaka, Takai, Kohyama, & Fujihara, 1990, 1994a). We then looked at the demographic traits of network members, and found that different support functions were provided by different types of members (Tanaka, Takai, Kohyama, & Fujihara, 1992; Tanaka, Takai, Kohyama, Minami, & Fujihara, 1994b). The present study investigated the relationship between network variables and adjustment, with the assumption that network formation has positive effects on crosscultural adjustment. Social networks as a factor in adjustment have been widely investigated. However, most studies have been based on the hypothesis that social support acts as a stress buffer in critical situations, and that support reduces maladjustment (Adelman, 1988; Fontaine, 1986). Such a view focuses on social support as a buffer between stress and maladjustment. The effect of interpersonal relationships on adjustment is very apparent in studies involving the contact hypothesis (Amir, 1969; Cook, 1971). This outlook sees frequency of host contact as a decisive factor in facilitating adjustment. The more contact with host members, the more positive becomes the attitude of a sojourner toward the hosts (Au, 1969), and the more likely it is that he/she will attain a social environment closer to that of the hosts in cultural and socioeconomic terms (Antler, 1970). Furthermore, it has been discovered that the more developed a sojourner s host network is, the less dissatisfaction he/she experiences in the host country (Richardson, 1974). Such studies employ a multifaceted approach to social network structure and function. The present study of the effect of social networks on adjustment focuses on the network variables, including number of members, amount of support, contact frequency, equity, the nature of the relationship, and the members age and sex. For the purpose of this study, adjustment was assessed by an inventory covering four factors, devised by Tanaka, Takai, Kohyama, Muranaka and Fujihara (1990), and Tanaka et al. (1994a). The first factor, labeled general adjustment, included such elements as stress and loneliness. The second factor, selfcontrol, dealt with a self-adaptation process through stress coping and adjusting one s causal attribution so that it would be consonant with the new cultural environment. The third factor, affiliative adjustment, dealt with satisfaction with the sojourn, achieving mental and physical stability, and maintaining sound interpersonal relationships. The fourth factor, dependent adjustment, dealt with stress coping by means dependent on the help of others. The effects of demographic traits on these factors of adjustment were examined by Tanaka et al. (1994a). For example, Taiwanese students were high on general adjustment and low on affiliative adjustment, while South- East Asian students were high on both. Also, it was found that subjects relatively new to Japan, or with little proficiency in Japanese were low on general adjustment. Each factor showed distinctive differences with demographic categories. The present study looked at how network factors can explain the pattern of differences. The social networks of international students in Japan have not been previously addressed thoroughly. Tsuboi (1991) found that international students, relative to the host Japanese students, experience more loneliness, and engage in few relationships with Japanese people. Yokota and Tanaka (1992) looked at the nationality and residential proximity of the friends of international students, and found that those living in international residences had few relationships with hosts or with nonconational sojourners. Hicks and Arima (1991) examined social support and maladjustment among international students using a longitudinal design, and discovered that effective support was most likely to be obtained from cosojourners, while host support fell short of facilitating adjustment. Judging from these results, it would appear that host relationships are not functioning as well as expected, but a much closer examination of the effect

3 14 T. Tanaka, J. Takai, T. Kouyama, T. Fujihara, and H. Minami of network composition on adjustment is desired. The purpose of this study was threefold: first, the assumption that social network development yields positive effects on adjustment was examined; second, the implications of demographic traits, such as length of stay and language proficiency, for network effects on adjustment were examined; and third, the characteristics of social network formation in the case of cross-cultural environmental transition were investigated. Method A total of 450 international students at seven Japanese national universities were asked to participate in this study. Of these, 235 responded to the questionnaire (response rate 52%) and valid responses numbered 221. The subjects region of origin were: China 34.5%; Korea 10.6%; Taiwan 8.1%; South-East Asia 23.8%; Europe/North America 10.2%; South/ Central America 8.1%; Middle East 0.9%; Africa 2.1%; and unspecified 1.7%. Males constituted 70.2% of the sample, 0.9% unspecified and the average age was years (SD = 4.78), with 24.2% under 25, 35.3% between 25 and 30, 32.1% between 31 and 35, and 8.4% over 35. Length of stay at the time of survey was 37.0% under 1 year, 26.8% between 1 and 2 years, 15.3% between 2 and 3 years, 20.4% over 3 years and 0.4% unspecified. With regard to proficiency in the Japanese language, 36.2% of the sample were at elementary level, 40.3% were at intermediate level, 23.1% were at advanced level and 0.4% were unspecified. Graduate students comprised 40.9% of the subjects, undergraduates 14.9%, research students 39.2%, and 5.1% unspecified. Those in the natural and applied sciences comprised 49.4% of the sample, liberal arts 38.1%, and 11.9% were unspecified. Questionnaires were given to faculty and administrative staff of the universities to be distributed to the students, during March and May Items were presented in both Japanese and English, with back-translation to assure linguistic equivalence. Items of the adjustment scale and descriptive statistics can be found in Tanaka, Takai, Kohyama, Muranaka, and Fujihara (1990). The present study analyzed the relationship between social network and adjustment. Items concerned with social network for the age, sex, nationality (copatriot, other non- Japanese, or Japanese), nature of relationship (academic advisor, same lab member, student tutor, other university staff, fellow student, host family, live-in family, relative, other acquaintance), equity in relationship (more dependent, equally dependent, less dependent), and frequency of contact. Furthermore, for each of the people listed, the extent to which they could be counted on for providing support was rated on a scale of one to three, for seven support functions. These seven items comprised two factors of support, according to Tanaka et al. (1994b), these being academic support, and daily life support. The former included helping in academic matters, and advising on Japanese language and cultural matters, while the latter included general advice and information necessary for living within a new cultural environment, materialistic support, and companionship for recreational activities. Items for cross-cultural adjustment are detailed in Tanaka, Takai, Kohyama, Muranaka, and Fujihara (1990) and Tanaka et al. (1994a). The following categories and their factors were included. Stress was composed of factors for interpersonal stress and daily life stress. Loneliness and social skills were single-factor scales by themselves. Cross-cultural adjustment comprised factors of Japanese language and culture, academic matters, and interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, maladjustment was measured on two factors of mental and physical ailments, and satisfaction with sojourn. All of these factors were included in a secondorder factor analysis, which yielded a fourfactor structure described in Tanaka, Takai, Kohyama, Muranaka, and Fujihara (1990) and Tanaka et al. (1994a). The factors general adjustment, self-controlled adjustment, affiliative adjustment, and dependent adjustment were extracted. In the present study, these factors were used for analyses.

4 Table 1. Network member traits by region of origin Sex Same/opposite Age Relationship Equity Frequency of contact sex male female opposite same teens 20s 30s over university student off- dependent equal depended daily weekly monthly three- less than 40 staff campus upon or more or more monthly 3-monthly or more Number 1, (%) (67.5) (32.5) (42.9) (57.1) (4.4) (46.6) (20.8) (28.2) (17.1) (37.5) (45.4) (35.4) (55.5) (9.1) (28.3) (40.5) (19.1) (9.2) (2.9) Copatriot (33.0) (60.8) (39.2) (39.4) (60.6) (5.1) (60.9) (27.9) (6.2) (1.9) (45.4) (52.8) (19.4) (69.8) (10.8) (35.9) (41.3) (14.0) (5.6) (3.2) Other nationality (13.6) (72.7) (27.3) (38.6) (61.4) (5.0) (64.0) (26.5) (4.5) (7.2) (58.8) (34.0) (19.9) (71.1) (9.0) (46.9) (32.0) (13.7) (6.3) (1.1) Japanese (53.4) (70.0) (30.1) (36.7) (63.3) (2.4) (35.0) (15.9) (46.8) (27.3) (28.0) (44.7) (49.5) (42.6) (7.9) (19.8) (41.4) (23.7) (11.9) (3.2) χ 2 (df) 14.5 (2)** 1.0 (2) ns (6)** (4)** (4)** 87.2 (8)** Note. University staff include academic advisors, professors and other university staff. Student refers to laboratory partners, student tutor and other students. Off-campus refers to host family, own family/relatives and other friends. Only valid responses were tallied, and some sub-categories may not add up to the total expected. The percentages given in the cross-tabulation were calculated for each category by national group. + p.10, *p.05, **p.01.

5 16 T. Tanaka, J. Takai, T. Kouyama, T. Fujihara, and H. Minami Results Characteristics of network members The total number of network members listed was 1,730, each subject reporting an average of 7.76 (SD = 2.83) members. Table 1 shows the nationality, sex, opposite/same-sex pairing, age, relationship, equity, and contact frequency. Sex of the network members showed that males were dominant, with 67.5%, while same-sex pairs were more frequent. No differences in the patterns of opposite/same-sex pairings could be found across nationality groups of members, although when relationship type was taken into consideration, same-sex pairing was high with Japanese student relations (73.0%), relative to off-campus relations of both copatriot (55.6%) and other nationalities (54.6%). Analyzed by age, copatriot and other nationality members were mainly in their 20s, while Japanese members tended to be in their 40s or over. With reference to the Japanese group, network members over 40 accounted for 73.4% of the relationships with university staff, 57.8% of those with people off campus, and 5% of the student relationships. The analysis by nationality of the network members and relationship type revealed that with copatriots, off-campus relationships accounted for 52.8%, students for 45.4%, and university staff for 1.9% of the members. For members of other foreign nationalities, the percentages were 58.8% for student relationships, 34.0% for off-campus relationships, and 7.2% for university staff relationships. Japanese members were 44.7% off-campus, 28% student, and 27.3% university staff. From the findings, it can be seen that university staff account for a much greater proportion of the Japanese members relative to the other two groups and, conversely, that student relationships are much less developed with Japanese than with the other groups. In terms of equity, about 70% of the relationships for both copatriot and other nationality groups were perceived to be equal in dependence, while greater dependence characterized about half of the relationships with Japanese people. For the Japanese group, dependence by relationship showed that 78.5% of the relationships with university staff, 38.5% of those with students, and 39.7% of those with people off campus were characterized by dependency. Overall, it appeared that most subjects got as much, or more, output than input from their relationships, regardless of nationality of the network member. There is a much greater feeling of dependency on Japanese members, however, and this may be because of the nature of the sojourner-host relationship. Frequency of contact was greatest in order of: other nationality, copatriot, and Japanese. Daily contact was had with 46.9% of other nationality members, 35.9% of copatriot members, and 19.8% of Japanese members. A breakdown of host contact showed that the most frequent contact was had with university staff and students, the percentage of one or more contact situations per week being 55.1% and 49.8% respectively. Off-campus host relations was greatest at one or more contact situations per week, at 39.0%, followed by one or more every three months, at 22.2%, but it should be noted that contact with these off-campus hosts was perceived as having very important implications in the adjustment process. Network structure variables and demographic characteristics The number of significant others given by each subject was operationalized as the network size. As an indication of network development, the following traits were examined: proportion of equitable relationships (number of relationships in which the two individuals depend on each other equally divided by network size), proportion of high-contact members (number of relationships with more than one contact a week divided by network size), proportion of on-campus relationships (number of university staff and students divided by network size), proportion of Japanese members (number of Japanese members divided by network size), proportion of satisfying relationships (number of very satisfying or satisfying relationships divided by network size). Furthermore, the factor scores for perceived support were included as a network structure variable. Table 2

6 Effects of social networks on cross-cultural adjustment 17 Table 2. Relationship between demographic and network variables Analysis of variance Network variables Mean (SD) Length of stay Region of origin Proficiency Correlation in Japanese with age Proportion of equitable.43 (.34) South/Central America r =.16* relationships China, Taiwan** F(5,207) = 3.53 Proportion on-campus.48 (.30) Korea, Taiwan SE Asia, South/Central America F(5,207) = 4.12 Proportion high contact.56 (.34) ( 1 year) (2 3 years)* South/Central America China* F(3,216) = 3.08 F(5,207) = 2.85 Proportion Japanese.47 (.28) China SE Asia** Advanced Elementary** F(5,207) = 4.43 F(2,217) = 4.93 Proportion with high.78 (.35) satisfaction Academic support 2.21 (.50) Intermediate Advanced* F(2,189) = 4.05 Daily life support 2.23 (.42) r =.20* Network size 7.30 (3.31) Note. Length of stay was divided into less than 1 year, 1 2 years, 2 3 years, and over 3 years. Japanese proficiency was divided into advanced, intermediate and elementary groups. Region of origin was classified as China, Korea, Taiwan, South-East Asia, Western nations, South/Central America. *p.05, **p.01,, ns. shows the significant differences from analyses of variance conducted on these variables by the demographic traits of length of stay, region of origin, and proficiency in Japanese, and the correlations of these variables with age. Subjects who had stayed less than 1 year were more likely to have greater frequency of contact with significant others than those staying 2 3 years. Those with advanced Japanese had more Japanese members in their network than the elementary level group, though they had less academic support than the intermediatelevel group. South/Central American subjects had more relationships characterized by equity than Chinese and Taiwanese subjects, and they enjoyed a higher frequency of contact with network members than Chinese subjects. Korean and Taiwanese subjects had more on-campus relationships than South-East Asian and South/ Central American subjects. Chinese subjects had more relationships with Japanese people than did South-East Asian subjects. Correlations between age and both equity and daily life support showed negative relationships. Relationships between the network variables and student status, sex, and area of study were not seen. Relationships between social network structure and adjustment Multiple regression analyses using the stepwise method were conducted to examine which network variables affected each type of adjustment (Table 3). For general adjustment, significant standardized partial regression coefficients were seen for frequency of contact, proportion of Japanese members, and daily life support, while equity had a weaker effect. For selfcontrol adjustment, frequency of contact, and academic support were significant explanatory variables, while academic support was so for affiliative adjustment. For dependent adjustment, relationship satisfaction and academic support were weakly related causally. Differences in adjustment determinants with demographic traits Region of origin was divided into two groups, Westerner and Asian, and regression analyses

7 18 T. Tanaka, J. Takai, T. Kouyama, T. Fujihara, and H. Minami Table 3. Multiple regression of network variables on adjustment General Self- Affiliative Dependent β/adjustment adjustment control Proportion of equitable relationships Proportion on-campus Proportion in high contact.245*.439** Proportion Japanese.264** Proportion with high satisfaction Academic support *.345** Daily life support.225* Network size R 2.193*.193** Figures represent standardized partial regression coefficients. + p.10, *p.05, **p.01. Table 4. Multiple regression of network variables on adjustment by region of origin Asians (China, Korea, Taiwan, SE Asia) Westerners (Americas, Europe) β/adjustment General Self- Affiliative Dependent General Self- Affiliative Dependent adjustment control adjustment control Proportion of equitable relationships Proportion on-campus Proportion in high contact.279*.428** Proportion Japanese.284* Proportion with high * satisfaction Academic support *.381**.320* Daily life support Network size R 2.201*.222** Figures represent standardized partial regression coefficients. + p.10, *p.05, **p.01. were conducted with adjustment variables as dependent variables, and network variables as independent variables. Table 4 shows the results of the stepwise analyses. Stronger R 2 coefficients were found with the Asian group, suggesting that their adjustment is more contingent upon network characteristics. No significant coefficients were found for the Westerner group. Table 5 shows the regression results by proficiency in Japanese. The regression seemed to have higher explanatory power in decreasing order of proficiency, i.e., the less proficient, the more likely were network variables to affect adjustment. Table 6 shows the regression results by duration of stay, but no explanatory tendencies were seen.

8 Table 5. Multiple regression of network variables on adjustment by proficiency in Japanese Advanced Intermediate Elementary β/adjustment General Self- Affiliative Dependent General Self- Affiliative Dependent General Self- Affiliative Dependent adjustment control adjustment control adjustment control Proportion of equitable **.459** relationships Proportion on-campus Proportion in high contact * * Proportion Japanese ** Proportion with high * satisfaction Academic support ** Daily life support * * Network size R *.432** ** Figures represent standardized partial regression coefficients. + p.10, *p.05, **p.01.

9 Table 6. Multiple regression of network variables on adjustment by length of stay 1 year 1 3 years 3 years β/adjustment General Self- Affiliative Dependent General Self- Affiliative Dependent General Self- Affiliative Dependent adjustment control adjustment control adjustment control Proportion of equitable relationships Proportion on-campus Proportion in high contact * ** Proportion Japanese.364* Proportion with high satisfaction Academic support * * Daily life support Network size R Figures represent standardized partial regression coefficients. + p.10, *p.05, **p.01.

10 Effects of social networks on cross-cultural adjustment 21 Discussion The hypothesis that network development would relate positively to adjustment was upheld. Each adjustment type tended to be accounted for by different variables, and differentiation with respect to the effects of network variables was seen. Overall, the effects of academic support and contact frequency seem to be most important among network structure elements in determining adjustment. The reason why network size (number of members) did not give significant results could be attributed to a ceiling effect from limiting members to a maximum of 10 persons. In order to examine the importance of size, as has been noted by Minami and Yamaguchi (1991), an open-ended method or an increased limit for the member list may have proven more effective. Looking at region of origin, Asian subjects tended to show more significant standardized partial regression coefficients suggesting that network effects were more powerful for this group. This pattern may reflect individualism/ collectivism (Hui & Triandis, 1986), the Westerners being individualists and Asians being collectivists. For collectivists, intimate relationships are desired, and their network may exert stronger effects on adjustment, while individualists may prefer less involvement within their immediate network. While Hicks and Arima (1991) could not find evidence that the effects of support on adjustment were always positive in their mixed sample study, Jou (1992) found that in her Chinese sample, there was a positive effect. When the sample is mixed with regard to cultural constituents, confounding effects may occur. According to Iwao and Hagiwara (1987), Asian students experience more difficulty than Westerners while in Japan. In general, Japanese people are more apt to discriminate against South-East Asians. Such differentiation in the attitude of the Japanese toward international students may have been sensed by the subjects, and this in turn may have given rise to the differences in adjustment seen in our preceding study (Tanaka et al. 1994a), which found that Westerners experienced less stress and more satisfaction. Because Asian students are in a more critical environment, network effects may be more salient for them. Dependent adjustment was a factor that tended not to show network effects, but when the analysis was restricted to Asian students, the proportion of Japanese members, satisfaction and academic support were found to affect it. For Westerners, affiliative adjustment showed a relatively high determinant coefficient. This suggests that for Asians, intimate relationships are more important, while for Westerners, those who have high affiliative tendencies derive importance from their networks. Therefore, those with high interpersonal orientation seem to show a stronger relationship between human relationships and adjustment. An interesting pattern was seen with proficiency in Japanese, in which the effect of network variables on adjustment was more pronounced for less proficient groups. For the elementary-level group, on-campus relationships and what appear to be Japanese key persons play important roles in the adjustment process. Academic and daily life support were major determinants of general and self-control adjustment of these types of students. With the intermediate-level group, equity, academic support, and daily life support were the major determinants of adjustment. Still, at this level of proficiency, a reliance on Japanese acquaintances is evident. However, for the advancedlevel group, there was little indication that Japanese networks had substantial effects, although, according to Yokota and Tanaka s results (1992), they should have had more Japanese friends than the less proficient groups. Perhaps linguistic proficiency allows for greater independence, and thus less need for social support. Network variables had a relatively high explanatory power for general adjustment and self-control adjustment. These findings lend support to Fontaine s (1986) network-deficiency model of adjustment, which argues that maladjustment becomes salient when network resources are not optimized by the subject. In particular, when an individual experiences maladjustment because Japanese relations are

11 22 T. Tanaka, J. Takai, T. Kouyama, T. Fujihara, and H. Minami inadequate, and daily life support is minimal, implications for the contact hypothesis (Amir, 1969; Cook, 1971) can be seen. While the minimum requirement for general adjustment may be the eradication of all symptoms of maladjustment, self-control adjustment involves higher-order needs, such as esteem. In this type of adjustment, the individual actively solves and interprets problems by him/herself, while developing basic interpersonal relationships and furthering academic goals. When viewed from the perspective of the student s role, such adjustment may be called academic adjustment, since academic success would be the student s prime concern. When viewed from the perspective of successful interpersonal adjustment, i.e., the establishment of a stable self-concept, the development of supportive relationships, and the ability to optimize the benefits from these relationships, this type of adjustment may be called self-actualization adjustment. While the above two types of adjustment reflect upon practical issues, such as health and academic success, affiliative adjustment and dependent adjustment tap social life situations, such as interpersonal orientation and satisfaction with daily life. Our results did not show the network variables to have a great effect on these types of adjustment. One explanation for this would be that internal processes are more active in bringing about such adjustment, and interpersonal relationships are less salient. Internal resources are more important than interpersonal resources in these types of adjustment. Affiliative adjustment is characterized by mental and physical well-being, good interpersonal relationships, and satisfaction with daily life. Of the network variables, academic support played a relatively important role in this adjustment. For international students, the prime goal is academic (Iwao & Hagiwara, 1987). It can be inferred that stability in academic matters is important for their psychological stability. With dependent adjustment, being comfortable with the host cultural environment, and coping with stress through external means are the main concerns. Rather than actively using interpersonal relationships, this type of adjustment suggests melting into the surroundings through one s own initiative. Finally, the network structure of international students should be mentioned. Minami and Yamaguchi (1989, 1991) have taken the approach used in this study to assess the networks of Japanese and American students. For equity, with their Japanese sample, they found that 32.7% were getting more than they provided, 63.4% were equal, and 3.8% were being under-benefitted. The respective figures for the American sample were 23.2%, 60.2%, and 16.6%. Japanese seem to get more out of the relationship than they invest. With contact frequency, Japanese tended to have either daily or rare contact, while Americans were relatively evenly distributed on contact frequency. Furthermore, Japanese networks seemed to comprise much more same-sex and same-age members than American networks. The results of the present study on international students in Japan showed equity figures of 35.4% for over-benefitting, 55.5% for equal, and 9.1% for under-benefitting. Compared with the Japanese and American figures given above, there appears to be greater dependency, and this may be because sojourners are more dependent on others in their foreign cultural environment. On the other hand, there was a greater percentage of those investing more than they were getting, and this could be because the subjects saw themselves as having an obligation to support newcomers and other international students. The percentage of those with equal input/output was lower than in either the Japanese and American samples, and this could be because they were more dependent or more depended upon, in lieu of their cross-cultural situation. The international students showed higher frequency in contacts than the other two groups. Perhaps the uprooting of their home networks prompted them actively to seek out and utilize what few relationships they had. Unlike host students, international students require the help of others to get by in academic and daily life, so it would seem natural for them to have more social contact. The frequency of contact by cultural group of members also showed an interesting pattern. Most contact

12 Effects of social networks on cross-cultural adjustment 23 was sought from the copatriot group, which seemed to provide a cultural identity (Furnham & Bochner, 1986). Off-campus Japanese people were allotted relatively little contact, though they were undoubtedly important for these students well-being. Finally, same-sex pairing of relationships was dominant. This may simply reflect the dominant pattern in the host culture, i.e., Japanese students are more comfortable with such pairings, and the international students are simply reciprocating. Little difference in network variables with demographic traits, such as student status, sex, and area of study, could be seen. Differences in duration of stay and age showed only partial differences, but clearer patterns were seen with region of origin and proficiency in the Japanese language. Studies on international students tend to deal with subjects of mixed backgrounds, and who are undergoing a dynamic process of adjustment, so it may have been difficult to tap the effects of these variables accurately. However, with the present study, it was found that variables illustrative of the effect of network were individual abilities, such as language proficiency. The determinants of network development should now be focused upon, and a longitudinal development process design should be applied to examine the dynamic phenomenon of adjustment. References Adelman, M. B. (1988). Cross-cultural adjustment: a theoretical perspective on social support. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 12, Amir, Y. (1969). Contact hypothesis in ethnic relations. Psychological Bulletin, 71, Antler, L. (1970). Correlates of home and host country acquaintanceship among foreign medical residents in United States. Journal of Social Psychology, 80, Au, D. S. C. (1969). The influence of contact with host nationals on foreign students attitudes. Unpublished BA honors thesis, University of New South Wales. Cook, S. (1971). The effect of unintended racial contact upon racial interaction and attitude change (Final report, Project No , Contact No. OEC ). Washington, DC: US Office of Education. Fontaine, G. (1986). Roles of social support systems in overseas relocation: implications for intercultural training. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10, Furnham, A., & Bochner, S. (1986). Culture shock. London: Methuen. Hicks, J. E., & Arima, M. (1991). Cross-cultural environmental transition. In T. Yamamoto & S. Wapner (Eds.), Developmental psychology of life transitions. Kyoto: Kitaoji Shobo (in Japanese), pp Hui, H., & Triandis, H. (1986). Individualismcollectivism: a study of cross-cultural researches. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 17, Iwao, S., & Hagiwara, S. (1987). Foreign students studying in Japan: a social psychological analysis. Tokyo: Sokei Shobo (in Japanese). Jou, Y. (1992). A study of social support of international students in Japan. Unpublished master s thesis, Hiroshima University (in Japanese). Minami, H., & Yamaguchi, S. (1989). A cross-cultural study on social support structure of college freshmen in the U.S.A. and Japan. In J. P. Forgas & J. M. Innes (Eds.), Recent advances in social psychology: an international perspective. North- Holland: Elsevier Science Publishers, pp Minami, H., & Yamaguchi, S. (1991). Transition into university life. In T. Yamamoto & S. Wapner (Eds.), Developmental psychology of life transitions. Kyoto: Kitaoji Shobo (in Japanese), pp Richardson, A. (1974). British immigrants and Australia: a psycho-social inequity. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Tanaka, T., Takai, J., Kohyama, T., & Fujihara, T. (1990). A study of the adjustment of international students in Japan. Collective Abstracts of the Chugoku Shikoku Psychological Association 23rd Annual Conference, 66 (in Japanese). Tanaka, T., Takai, J., Kohyama, T., Muranaka, C., & Fujihara, T. (1990). A study of the adjustment of international students in Japan 1: The factor structure of the cross-cultural adjustment scale. Bulletin of the Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University #3, 14, (in Japanese). Tanaka, T., Takai, J., Kohyama, T., & Fujihara, T. (1992). A study of the adjustment of international students in Japan 3: Characteristics of social support network members. Collective Abstracts of the Japanese Society of Social

13 24 T. Tanaka, J. Takai, T. Kouyama, T. Fujihara, and H. Minami Psychology, 33rd Annual Conference, (in Japanese). Tanaka, T., Takai, J., Kohyama, T., & Fujihara, T. (1994a). Adjustment pattern of international students in Japan. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 18, Tanaka, T., Takai, J., Kohyama, T., Fujihara, T. & Minami, H. (1994b). Social networks of international students in Japan: perceived social support and relationship satisfaction. Japanese Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33, Tsuboi, K. (1991). Asian students and Japanese students: a comparison of international students with Japanese and Korean students. Komazawa Studies in Sociology, 23, (in Japanese). Yokota, M., & Tanaka, T. (1992). Friendship networks of international students in Japan: a comparison of residential types. Japanese Journal of Student Counselling, 13, 1 8 (in Japanese). (Received March 2, 1994; accepted July 1, 1995)