A Qualitative Examination of East Asian …



A Qualitative Examination of East Asian Relationship Norms

Leyna Vo

Mentors: Jeanett Castellanos and Yong Park

Counseling psychologists work extensively at understanding various worldviews and norms to treat a diverse client population from a culturally sensitive perspective. Their role is to understand their clients’ world experiences and personal perspectives of those encounters. A review of the literature suggests that East Asians adhere to relationship norms that are based on the traditional Asian worldviews of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. Differences in relationship norms may contribute to acculturative stress and disruptive interpersonal relationships for East Asian Americans who operate within multiple cultural contexts. These disturbances in East Asian Americans provide insight to clinicians about their clients’ values, cultural practices, and life processes. To better understand the norm differences, this study identified common domain areas of East Asian Relationship Norms (EARN) by conducting semi-structured interviews with 15 East Asian Americans. For the purposes of this study, the EARN construct refers to socially sanctioned behaviors that are endorsed by East Asian Americans. Content analysis of the interview responses revealed that the following domain areas represented the EARN construct: interpersonal harmony, relational hierarchy, long-term reciprocity, interdependence, in-group loyalty, well-defined roles, propriety, face management, other centeredness, and social positioning. Directions for future research and clinical implications are discussed.

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