Adherence to Asian and European American Cultural Values and AttitudesToward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Among Asian American

College Students

Bryan S. K. KimUniversity of Hawaii at Hilo

Possible relations among enculturation and acculturation to cultural values and attitudes toward seekingprofessional psychological help were examined among 146 Asian American college students. In addition,possible relations between various dimensions of Asian values and attitudes toward seeking professionalpsychological help were examined. As hypothesized, the results indicated a significant inverse relationbetween enculturation to Asian values and professional help-seeking attitudes, above and beyond that ofthe association with having previous counseling experience. Although bivariate correlational resultssuggested possible inverse relations between the Asian values dimensions of collectivism, emotionalself-control, and humility and professional help-seeking attitudes, these associations were not confirmedwith a hierarchical multiple regression model. Contrary to expectation, a significant relation was notobserved between values acculturation and professional help-seeking attitudes. Also, the interactionbetween enculturation and acculturation to cultural values was not significantly predictive of professionalhelp-seeking attitudes.

Keywords: enculturation, acculturation, cultural values, help-seeking attitudes, Asian Americans

Recent studies continue to show that Asian Americans (andother ethnic minorities) tend to underutilize psychological servicesin comparison to their European American counterparts (e.g., U.S.Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). This finding isperplexing given the minority status of Asian Americans and theirexperiences of oppression in the United States, which wouldsuggest that they have an increased need for mental health services(Leong, Wagner, & Tata, 1995). In an effort to make sense of thispuzzling finding, scholars have speculated that perhaps main-stream service delivery systems and providers lack cultural rele-vancy, sensitivity, and competency, which discourage AsianAmericans from seeking help from these providers (Atkinson,Morten, & Sue, 1998; Sue & Sue, 2003). Also, scholars havespeculated that perhaps Asian Americans’ help-seeking behaviorsare related to two within-group cultural norm factors. These factorsare (a) Asian Americans’ lack of familiarity with dominant U.S.culture (i.e., European American), particularly in the area of psy-chological services, and (b) traditional Asian cultural norms thatmay discourage Asian Americans from seeking help from profes-sional psychological service providers. The purpose of the presentstudy was to examine the potential validity of this two-factorexplanation with a sample of Asian American college students.

Many theories have been proposed to describe the processes ofadaptation by Asian Americans to the dominant cultural norms of

the United States and their retention of traditional Asian culturalnorms (see Kim & Abreu, 2001), and, in turn, these theories havebeen used to investigate help-seeking attitudes and behaviors ofAsian Americans (e.g., Atkinson & Gim, 1989; Kim & Omizo,2003; Tata & Leong, 1994). One theory that has been useful tocounseling researchers was developed by Berry and his colleagues(e.g., Berry & Kim, 1988; Berry, Trimble, & Olmeda, 1986).These authors proposed that the course of adaptation comprisestwo orthogonal processes: (a) adaptation to the norms of the newculture and (b) maintenance of the norms of the indigenous culture.They used the term acculturation to simultaneously describe thesetwo processes. However, in the literature on Asian Americans, theword acculturation has largely emphasized the process of adapta-tion to the norms of majority culture, while downplaying theprocess of retention of one’s indigenous cultural norms (Kim,2007). Kim pointed out that although Berry and colleagues’ char-acterization of acculturation in terms of cultural maintenance maywork well for immigrant Asian Americans who have been social-ized into their Asian cultural norms before arriving in the UnitedStates, it might not accurately describe the experiences of AsianAmericans who were born in the United States. These AsianAmericans, particularly for individuals who are several genera-tions removed from migration, may never have been fully social-ized into their Asian ethnic group’s cultural norms. For thesepersons, the application of the phrase “cultural maintenance” maynot be appropriate.

Given these difficulties with the sole use of the term accultur-ation, the term enculturation has been introduced as a construct tohighlight the process of being socialized into and retaining one’sindigenous cultural norms for both immigrant, first-generationAsian Americans and those who are farther removed from migra-tion; in contrast, acculturation refers solely to the process of

Data collection was initiated while Bryan S. K. Kim was a facultymember in the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland,College Park. I thank Lisa Li, Christopher Liang, and Hye Ryun Park forassisting with data collection and entry.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to BryanS. K. Kim, Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii at Hilo, 200West Kawili Street, Hilo, HI 96720-4091. E-mail: bryankim@hawaii.edu

Journal of Counseling Psychology Copyright 2007 by the American Psychological Association2007, Vol. 54, No. 4, 474–480 0022-0167/07/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0022-0167.54.4.474

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adapting to the norms of the dominant group (i.e., EuropeanAmerican culture; Herskovits, 1948; Kim & Abreu, 2001). Animportant benefit of using the term enculturation is that it places anequal level of focus with that of acculturation.

A dimension within the constructs of acculturation and encul-turation that may be related to help-seeking attitudes is culturalvalues. Sue and D. Sue (2003) pointed out that Asian culturalvalues include avoidance of shame, hierarchical relationships, andcollectivistic orientation. Kim, Atkinson, and Yang (1999) identi-fied additional Asian cultural values: emotional self-control, con-formity to norms, family recognition through achievement, filialpiety, and humility. Values salient to European Americans areautonomy, individualism, mastery of the environment, and futureorientation (Atkinson et al., 1998; Sue & Sue, 2003). To furtherdistinguish between Asian and European American cultural values,Casas and Mann (1996) used the following descriptors (the firstword in the pair reflects Asian values and the second word repre-sents European American values): becoming– doing,interdependence–independence, indirect expression– directness/openness, elder reverence–youth orientation, harmony–competition, and tradition–change.

On the basis of this conceptualization of acculturation andenculturation to cultural values, it can be reasoned that AsianAmericans who are strongly acculturated, and hence more familiarwith the European American culture, would be more open toprofessional psychological services than their counterparts who areless acculturated. They may adhere strongly to European Americanvalues (i.e., high acculturation), such as openness, change, andindividualism, and hence feel less ashamed about seeking profes-sional psychological help. However, it can be reasoned that AsianAmericans who are strongly enculturated would adhere to Asianvalue dimensions, such as avoidance of shame and emotionalself-control, that might discourage them from seeking professionalpsychological services.

In terms of existing research on the relations between accultur-ation and help-seeking attitudes, Atkinson and Gim (1989) exam-ined the relations between acculturation and attitudes toward seek-ing professional psychological services among Chinese, Japanese,and Korean American college students. The results showed thatrespondents who are highly acculturated tend to be more likely torecognize personal need for professional psychological help, tol-erant of the stigma, and open to discussing their problems with aservice provider. These findings were replicated in Tata and Leong(1994). As for the relations between enculturation and help-seeking attitudes, Kim and Omizo (2003) found that adherence togeneral Asian values (i.e., high enculturation) was inversely re-lated to both attitudes toward seeking professional psychologicalhelp and willingness to see a counselor.

However, a major limitation in the results on acculturation is theuse of the Suinn-Lew Asian Self-Identity Acculturation Scale(SL-ASIA; Suinn, Rickard-Figueroa, Lew, & Vigil, 1987), a mea-sure of adaptation that is based on a one-continuum measurementmodel. On this measure, low scores are reflective of high Asianidentification, and high scores are reflective of high acculturationto Western culture, with the middle point being unclear. Thismeasurement model is inconsistent with the present adaptationtheory, which posits that adherence to Asian and Western culturesare two separate processes, as described above (e.g., Berry & Kim,1988; Berry et al., 1986).

But more important, in this type of a measure, the constructs ofacculturation and enculturation are confounded with each other.That is, it is not clear whether the direct relation with professionalhelp-seeking attitudes is due to the loss of traditional Asian cul-tural norms (decreased enculturation) or the acquisition of Euro-pean American cultural norms (increased acculturation). This is animportant question to investigate when considering that in a studywith Mexican American community college students, Ruelas, At-kinson, and Ramos-Sanchez (1998) found that the loss of Mexicanculture, rather than the acquisition of dominant U.S. culture, wasassociated with perceptions of counselor credibility. Previous tothis finding, scholars believed that the acquisition of dominantU.S. culture was mainly associated with individuals’ perceptionsof the counselor. Furthermore, the SL-ASIA that was used toassess acculturation (and enculturation) in the studies of help-seeking attitudes, including the ones used in the Atkinson and Gim(1989) and Tata and Leong (1994) studies, have mainly assessedconstruct domain of behaviors (e.g., food preference, moviechoice, language use), with little attention to the domain of values(Kim & Abreu, 2001). Szapocznik, Scopetta, Kurtines, andAranalde (1978) pointed out that cultural values are an importantdimension to include when studying the adaptation processes ofethnic minorities. Therefore, the present study attempted to focuson cultural values in simultaneously investigating the separateroles of enculturation and acculturation on their relations to help-seeking attitudes. The results may provide helpful insights onwhether either or both constructs of acculturation and encultura-tion should be attended to when considering the issue of profes-sional help-seeking attitudes.

Another limitation of the existing research is that there has beenno attempt to examine the model proposed by Berry and col-leagues (e.g., Berry & Kim, 1988; Berry et al., 1986) on thepossible interaction between acculturation and enculturation andits relation to help-seeking attitudes. According to this model, acombination of the ends of the acculturation and enculturationcontinua can lead to one of four attitudinal statuses: integration,separation, assimilation, and marginalization. Integration occurswhen an individual is proficient in the culture of the dominantgroup (high acculturated) while also retaining proficiency in theindigenous culture (high enculturated). Assimilation occurs whenan individual absorbs the culture of the dominant group (highacculturated) while rejecting the indigenous culture (low encultur-ated). Separation occurs when an individual is not interested inlearning the culture of the dominant group (low acculturated) andwants only to learn and maintain the culture of origin (highenculturated). Finally, marginalization represents the attitude of anindividual with no interest in acquiring or maintaining proficiencyin neither dominant nor indigenous cultures (low acculturated andlow enculturated). In the present study, the possible relationsbetween these statuses and professional help-seeking attitudeswere examined.

Given this backdrop, the purpose of the present study was toexamine Asian American college students’ attitudes toward seek-ing professional psychological help in the context of both encul-turation and acculturation to cultural values. First, based on thefindings from Atkinson and Gim (1989) and Tata and Leong(1994), it was hypothesized that adherence to European Americancultural values, while controlling for the possible association withadherence to Asian cultural values, would be directly related to

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professional help-seeking attitudes, above and beyond the associ-ations with related demographic variables. Second, based on Kimand Omizo (2003), it was hypothesized that adherence to Asiancultural values, while controlling for the possible association withadherence to European American cultural values, would be in-versely related to professional help-seeking attitudes, above andbeyond the associations with related demographic variables. Third,based on Berry and colleagues’ model, it was hypothesized thatthere would be an interaction effect such that the professionalhelp-seeking attitudes would be most positive for individuals whoare high acculturated and low enculturated (i.e., assimilated), fol-lowed by those who are both high acculturated and enculturated(i.e., integrated). Individuals who are low acculturated and highenculturated (i.e., separated) and who are low acculturated andenculturated (i.e., marginalized) were predicted to have the leastprofessional help-seeking attitudes. Fourth, the following researchquestion was studied: What are the relations between adherence tothe six Asian value dimensions mentioned above and attitudestoward seeking professional psychological help?

Method

Participants

After obtaining approvals from the institutional review board,participants were recruited from an introductory psychology sub-ject pool and given course credit. Participants were 146 (49 menand 97 women) Asian American college students at a large EastCoast university. They ranged in age from 18 to 36 (M � 19.82,SD � 2.51). Of the participants, 62 were first-year students, 27(18.5%) were sophomores, 29 (19.9%) were juniors, 27 (18.5%)were seniors, and 1 (1.0%) was a graduate student. There were 34(23.3%) Chinese, 27 (18.5%) Asian Indians, 27 (18.5%) Koreans,14 (9.6%) Filipinos, 11 (7.5%) Japanese, 7 (4.8%) multiethnic, 5(3.4%) Taiwanese, 4 (2.7%) Vietnamese, 3 (2.1%) Indonesian, 1(1.0%) Cambodian, 1 (1.0%) Malaysian, 1 (1.0%) Pakistani, 1(1.0%) Thai, and 10 (6.8%) “others.” In terms of generation sinceimmigration, 67 (45.9%) were first generation, 70 (47.9%) weresecond generation, 3 (2.1%) were third generation, 1 (1.0%) wasfifth generation, and 5 (3.4%) were sixth generation. Among thefirst-generation group, the number of years since immigrationranged from 1 to 34 (M � 11.07, SD � 6.60). Among theparticipants, 72 (49.3%) respondents answered yes to the follow-ing question: Have you ever sought academic, career, or personalcounseling from a psychologist or a professional counselor?; 1 didnot respond to this question.

Measures

Values enculturation. The Asian Values Scale (AVS; Kim etal., 1999) is a measure of enculturation to Asian values. It contains36 items, and 2 example items are (a) “One should not be boastful”and (b) “Following familial and social expectations are important.”A 7-point scale (1 � strongly disagree; 7 � strongly agree) is usedto assess the respondent’s endorsement of each item. Kim et al.(1999) reported coefficient alphas of .81 and .82 and a 2-weektest–retest reliability coefficient of .83 for the total score based ondata from Asian American college students; the data from thepresent study yielded a similar coefficient alpha of .85. An explor-

atory factor analysis showed six factors representing the followingdimensions of Asian cultural values: collectivism, conformity tonorms, emotional self-control, family recognition through achieve-ment, filial piety, and humility. In the present study, the followingcoefficient alphas were observed for each of the six factors, re-spectively: .63, .78, .40, .69, .40, and .71. These alphas are some-what consistent with those reported by Kim et al. (1999; .54–.56,.69–.77, .47–.52, .62–.72, .38–.44, .55–.57, respectively). Evi-dence of construct validity of the AVS total score was obtainedthrough a confirmatory factor analysis, in which a factor structurerepresenting the relations between the AVS, Individualism-Collectivism scale (Triandis, 1995), and the SL-ASIA (Suinn etal., 1987) was supported (Kim et al., 1999). Discriminant validitywas evidenced in the low correlation (r � .15) between the AVSscores, which reflect values enculturation, and the SL-ASIAscores, which largely represent behavioral acculturation (Kim etal., 1999). For ease of interpreting the numbers, AVS’s averagescores ranging from 1 to 7 were used in the present data analysis.

Values acculturation. The European American Values Scalefor Asian Americans (EAVS-AA; Wolfe, Yang, Wong, & Atkin-son, 2001) is a measure of acculturation to European Americancultural values. It contains 18 statements that are assessed on a7-point scale (1 � strongly disagree; 7 � strongly agree). TheEAVS-AA assesses one’s attitudes across various situations, in-cluding child-rearing practices, marital behavior, autonomy, andsexual freedom. Two example items are (a) “I’m confident in myability to handle most situations” and (b) “The idea that one spousedoes all the housework is outdated.” Wolfe et al. selected items onthe basis of t tests of the mean scores on each of the 180 prelim-inary items that were generated on the basis of a review of theliterature describing European American culture and the WorldValues Survey (Inglehart, Basanez, & Moreno, 1993); items thatwere scored significantly higher by European Americans than byfirst-generation Asian Americans were retained. This process ledto the identification of 26 items that were more strongly endorsedby European Americans. The authors further removed 8 items onthe basis of item score-total score statistics, leading to the 18-itemmeasure. The EAVS-AA has a unidimensional structure, yieldinga single total score. In terms of reliability, Wolfe et al. (2001)reported a coefficient alpha of .69 with a sample of Asian Amer-icans; the data from the present study yielded a similar coefficientalpha of .71. For ease of interpreting the numbers, EAVS-AA’saverage scores ranging from 1 to 7 were used in the present dataanalysis.

Attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. The10-item Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional PsychologicalHelp–Shortened Form (ATSPPH-SF; Fischer & Farina, 1995) wasbased on a factor analysis of Fischer and Turner’s (1970) 29-itemmeasure of Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional PsychologicalHelp, which assessed four dimensions of help-seeking attitudes(recognition of need for psychological help, stigma tolerance,interpersonal openness, and confidence in mental health profes-sionals). Here are 2 example items: (a) “I would want to getpsychological help if I were worried or upset for a long period oftime” and (b) “If I were experiencing a serious emotional crisis atthis point in my life, I would be confident that I could find reliefin psychotherapy.” The ATSPPH-SF has a unidimensional struc-ture, yielding a single total score. According to Fischer and Farina(1995), the ATSPPH-SF score yielded a coefficient alpha of .84

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and a 1-month test–retest reliability coefficient of .80 with alargely European American sample. With an Asian Americansample, Kim and Omizo (2003) reported a coefficient alpha of .85for the ATSPPH-SF total score; the present data yielded a coeffi-cient alpha of .81. Fischer and Farina (1995) reported evidence ofconstruct validity (e.g., correlation of .87 with the 29-item mea-sure). The items in the ATSPPH-SF are rated using scores between1 (disagree) and 4 (agree); for ease of interpreting the numbers,average scores ranging from 1 to 4 were used in the present dataanalysis.

Results

Preliminary Analyses

Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations among thevariables are presented in Table 1. No significant differences werefound on the ATSPPH-SF score between (a) female and malestudents, t(144) � 1.86, p � .066; for this and other t tests below,the Levene’s Test for equality of variance was conducted to takeinto account the unequal sample sizes; the results of these testswere nonsignificant, (b) academic levels, F(3, 141) � 0.18, p �.907; the graduate student category with only 1 participant was notincluded in this analysis, (c) Asian ethnic backgrounds, F(4,108) � 0.71, p � .588; the ethnic groups with fewer than 10respondents were not included in this analysis, and (d) first- andsecond-generation Asian Americans, t(135) � 0.33, p � .745;given the small numbers of participants who indicated other gen-eration statuses, these categories were not included in this analysis.Also, there was a lack of significant correlation between partici-pant age and ATSPPH-SF score, r(146) � .08, p � .172. Hence,the data were collapsed across these demographic variables. How-ever, there was a significant difference, t(143) � 2.46, p � .015,on the ATSPPH-SF score between respondents who have had pastacademic, career, or personal counseling from a psychologist or aprofessional counselor (M � 2.64, SD � 0.53) and respondentswho did not have this experience (M � 2.41, SD � 0.58). Con-sequently, this variable was included in the main analysis.

Main Analyses

A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted totest the three hypotheses. The predictor variables were the previous

counseling experience (no � 1, yes � 2), AVS score, EAVS-AAscore, and the interaction of AVS and EAVS. The criterion vari-able was the ATSPPH-SF score. The previous counseling experi-ence variable was entered in Step 1, the AVS and EAVS-AAscores in Step 2, and the interaction variable of AVS andEAVS-AA in Step 3. The intent of having these blocks was toexamine the possible unique effects of these three sets of variables.The alpha level was set at .05. In an attempt to avoid multicol-linearity, the AVS and EAVS-AA scores were first statisticallycentered (i.e., the mean score was subtracted from each score sothat the resulting mean was zero) and then multiplied to create theinteraction variable. Also, the AVS and EAVS-AA scores were notcorrelated with each other, which suggested that multicollinearitywas not present.

As shown in Table 2, the results indicated that the amount ofvariance explained by the regression equations in Step 1 and Step2 differed significantly from zero and that there was a significantincrease in explained variance between the two steps. However,the inclusion of the interaction variable of the AVS and EAVS-AAscore in Step 3 did not result in a significant increase in explainedvariance. With respect to the three hypotheses, the standardizedbeta coefficients in Step 3 indicated a lack of significant relationbetween the EAVS-AA score and the ATSPPH-SF score, thusshowing that the first hypothesis was not supported. The standard-ized beta coefficients in Step 3 showed that the AVS score was asignificant negative predictor of the ATSPPH-SF score, therebysupporting the second hypothesis. As for the third hypothesis, thelack of significance for the interaction variable indicated that thehypothesis was not supported.

To study the research question, a simultaneous multiple regres-sion analysis was conducted in which the six Asian values factors(collectivism, conformity to norms, emotional self-control, familyrecognition through achievement, filial piety, and humility) servedas predictor variables, and the ATSPPH-SF score served as thedependent variable. The results showed a significant amount ofvariance explained by this model (R2 � .11), F(6, 139) � 2.74,p � .015. However, none of the standardized betas of the sixpredictors were significant: collectivism (� � �.16, t � �1.75,p � .082); conformity to norms (� � .02, t � 0.18, p � .856);emotional self-control (� � �.16, t � �1.83, p � .070); familyrecognition through achievement (� � �.10, t � �0.98, p �

Table 1Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations Among the Variables

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1. AVS 4.17 0.66 —2. EAVS-AA 5.29 0.61 �0.05 —3. ATSPPH-SF 2.52 0.56 �0.24** �0.05 —4. Collectivism 4.57 1.14 0.57*** �0.06 �0.21** —5. Conformity to Norms 3.81 1.05 0.87*** �0.12 �0.13 0.42*** —6. Emotional Self-Control 4.27 1.10 0.42*** 0.15* �0.22** 0.23** 0.30*** —7. Family Recognition Through Achievement 4.47 1.38 0.62*** �0.07 �0.11 0.21** 0.55*** 0.11 —8. Filial Piety 4.86 1.04 0.52*** �0.04 0.03 0.31*** 0.37*** �0.10 0.22** —9. Humility 5.54 0.94 0.29*** 0.14 �0.17* 0.23** 0.14 0.03 0.00 0.18* —

Note. AVS � Asian Values Scale; EAVS-AA � European American Values Scale for Asian Americans; ATSPPH-SF � Attitudes Toward SeekingProfessional Psychological Help–Shortened Form.*p � .05. **p � .01. ***p � .001.

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.331); filial piety (� � .10, t � 1.13, p � .262); and humility (� ��.15, t � �1.81, p � .073).

Discussion

The purpose of the present study was to bring more clarity to thehelp-seeking attitudes of Asian Americans by examining the rela-tions between both acculturation to European American values andenculturation to Asian values and attitudes toward seeking profes-sional psychological help. As hypothesized, the results showedthat enculturation to Asian cultural values, while controlling forthe association with acculturation to European American values,was inversely related to attitudes toward seeking professionalpsychological help, above and beyond that of previous counselingexperience. This finding is consistent with the findings from Kimand Omizo (2003), which showed that adherence to Asian valueswas inversely related to help-seeking attitudes and willingness tosee a counselor, above and beyond the associations with relateddemographic variables, including previous counseling experience.

Contrary to our hypothesis, however, the results indicated a lackof association between acculturation to European American cul-tural values and professional help-seeking attitudes, while control-ling for the associations with enculturation to Asian values andprevious counseling experience. This result was puzzling giventhat past research showed a significant direct relation (Atkinson &Gim, 1989; Tata & Leong, 1994). One possible explanation is thatthe significant effect observed in the Atkinson and Gim (1989) andTata and Leong (1994) studies were the result of enculturationrather than acculturation. As explained in the introduction, themeasure used in both of these studies confounded acculturationwith enculturation in that one end of the continua representedadherence to traditional Asian cultural norms and the other end ofthe continuum reflected adherence to European American culturalnorms. Another possible explanation for this discrepancy is thatthe measures used in previous research assessed predominantly thebehavioral dimension (e.g., choice of food, language spoken) andnot values per se.

Together, the above results suggest that Asian Americans’ atti-tudes toward help-seeking are associated with their loss of tradi-tional Asian cultural norms, rather than the acquisition of Euro-

pean American cultural norms. This explanation is consistent withthe findings from Ruelas et al. (1998) with Mexican Americans, asdescribed in the introduction. To reiterate, the results in this studysuggested that highly acculturated Mexican Americans perceivecounselors to be a less credible source of help than do their lessacculturated counterparts. However, further analyses revealed thatit is the loss of Mexican culture (decreased enculturation), ratherthan the acquisition of European American culture (increasedacculturation), that accounted for lower counselor credibility rat-ings. (This finding appears to contradict the present finding. How-ever, it could be that low adherence to traditional Mexican culture,such as respect for authority figures [respeto] and trust [confianza],are associated with low perception of counselor credibility. In thepresent study, strong adherence to traditional Asian values, such asemotional self-control and avoidance of shame, is associated withlow professional help-seeking attitudes.) In summary, the presentresults suggest that the active ingredient in determining help-seeking attitudes among Asian American college students is valuesenculturation rather than values acculturation.

When examining the specific Asian value dimensions, the re-sults showed that the overall model, in which the professionalhelp-seeking attitudes score was regressed on the scores from thedimensions of collectivism, conformity to norms, emotional self-control, family recognition through achievement, filial piety, andhumility, accounted for a significant amount of variance. But,follow-up analyses revealed that none of the value dimensionscores independently were significantly associated with the help-seeking score. It is interesting, however, that the bivariate corre-lations showed significant associations between the scores oncollectivism, emotional self-control, and humility and the score onprofessional help-seeking attitudes. Although these correlationalresults must be interpreted very cautiously given the lack ofcontrol for inflated Type I error rate and the unacceptably lowinternal consistency coefficients for the measures of collectivismand emotional self-control, the overall results of the multipleregression and bivariate correlations are worthy of further inves-tigation.

Of particular interest is that nearly 94% of the participants in thepresent study reported being first- or second-generation Ameri-

Table 2Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analyses on Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help–Shortened Form

Variable � t p R2 F p �R2 �F �p

Step 1Previous counseling 0.20 2.46 .015 0.04 6.06a .015 0.04* 6.06a .015

Step 2Previous counseling 0.21 2.52 .013 0.10 5.02b .002 0.06* 4.36d .015AVS �0.24 �2.95 .004EAVS-AA �0.02 �0.26 .799

Step 3Previous counseling 0.20 2.49 .014 0.10 3.86c .005 0.00 0.42e .517AVS �0.23 �2.90 .004EAVS-AA �0.03 �0.40 .688AVS � EAVS-AA �0.05 �0.65 .517

Note. Previous counseling � “Have you ever sought academic, career, or personal counseling from a psychologist or a professional counselor?” No �1, Yes � 2; AVS � Asian Values Scale; EAVS-AA � European American Values Scale for Asian Americans.adfs � 1, 143. bdfs � 3, 141. cdfs � 4, 140. ddfs � 2, 141. edfs � 1, 140.*p � .05.

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cans. Kim et al. (1999) found that there was no change on valuesenculturation between first- and second-generation Asian Ameri-cans. Therefore, it might have been expected that a nonsignificantrelation between enculturation to values and help-seeking attitudeswould be observed in the present study due to the relative lack ofvariability on the values enculturation variable that is related togeneration status. However, this was not the case, and a significantinverse relation was observed. In summary, the significant result,despite the low statistical power related to decreased variability onenculturation to values, provide strong validation that an inverserelation exists between values enculturation and help-seeking at-titudes.

The present results did not support my hypothesis of an inter-action effect of values acculturation and enculturation on help-seeking attitudes that was based on the adaptation model proposedby Berry and his colleagues (Berry & Kim, 1988; Berry et al.,1986). Although it is difficult to explain a nonsignificant finding,one possibility is that there may have been limited ranges of scoreson the AVS and the EAVS-AA to fully replicate the four statusesin the model. Given that the present sample consisted of collegestudents who mainly belonged to first and second generations,there may have been a restricted range of scores on the interactionvariable. This possibility combined with the strength of the theorywarrants conducting additional research with participants whorepresent greater variability on acculturation and enculturation tovalues.

It is interesting that correlational analyses revealed no associa-tion between enculturation and acculturation in terms of adherenceto cultural values. That is, among Asian Americans, the process ofadhering to Asian cultural values is unrelated to the process ofadhering to the European American cultural values. This finding isconsistent with Berry and colleagues’ orthogonal model of accul-turation (and enculturation) and the findings from Ryder, Alden,and Paulhus (2000) showing empirical support for this model. Inaddition, theorists such as Triandis (1995) posited that the popu-larly perceived dichotomy between individualism (a presumeddimension of acculturation) and collectivism (a presumed dimen-sion of enculturation) is inaccurate because all cultures have char-acteristics of both dimensions, although at varying degrees andstrengths. In other words, a low level of individualism does notindicate a high level of collectivism, or vice versa. The presentresults suggest that individuals can have varying levels of accul-turation regardless of their levels of enculturation, and vice versa.

Limitations

The findings from this study are limited to Asian Americancollege students who are enrolled in introductory psychologicalcourses and may not apply to Asian Americans in geographiclocations beyond the East Coast. The findings may be valid onlyfor the Asian American ethnic groups represented in the sampleand among mainly first- and second-generation individuals. AsianAmerican ethnic groups who were not represented in the samplemay differ in their help-seeking attitudes vis-a-vis adherence toAsian and European American cultural values. In terms of statis-tical analysis, the low coefficient alphas for the Emotional Self-Control and Filial Piety subscale scores indicate the presence of arelatively high degree of measurement error for the present sample

and should be considered with caution. Future studies shouldattempt to address these limitations.

Also, nearly 50% of the sample reported having had academic,career, or personal counseling experiences. This figure is incon-sistent with data showing that Asian Americans tend to underuti-lize counseling services. However, this anomaly might be ex-plained by the fact that all of the participants are college studentsand may have had seen an academic or career counselor in theirhigh schools to, for example, complete the college applicationprocess. Given the value of academic achievement among AsianAmericans in general, it could be speculated that seeing an aca-demic or career counselor, versus a personal counselor, might beperceived as an acceptable form of help seeking. In support of thisexplanation, in a study that asked about previous personal coun-seling experience only, the percentage of participants indicating“yes” was 7.6% (Li & Kim, 2004), whereas other studies thatinquired about previous academic, career, or personal counselingexperiences reported higher percentages of participants who indi-cated “yes” (e.g., 38.6% in Kim, Ng, & Ahn, 2005). Nonetheless,the present finding regarding help-seeking rate should be furtherexamined in future studies.

Implications for Research and Practice

Notwithstanding the limitations, the present findings offer im-plications for theory and future research with Asian Americans. Ina first attempt to examine the possible differential relations be-tween acculturation and enculturation to cultural values and pro-fessional help-seeking attitudes, the results of the present studysuggested that enculturation to Asian values has strong relations tohelp-seeking attitudes, whereas acculturation to European Ameri-can values was not found to have a significant relation. Thisfinding represents a significant departure from past scholarly work,which has mainly focused on the construct of acculturation (i.e.,adaptation to European American norms). On the basis of thepresent finding, therefore, future research work might bear moreuseful fruit by focusing on the construct of enculturation as itrelates to professional help-seeking attitudes and behaviors.

Also on the basis of the present findings, implications related tocounseling can be offered. First, counselors need to work towardreaching Asian American college students who are highly encul-turated and hence who have less professional help-seeking atti-tudes. For these students, it would be helpful for counselors to hosteducational workshops focusing on the benefits of counseling.This educational effort also might be geared toward parents ofthese students, given the values of filial piety, which suggest thatparents play an influential role in the lives of highly enculturatedstudents. Second, counselors should try to gain the support ofAsian American student leaders who may have better access tothese persons when implementing this educational outreach. In sodoing, counselors can work with these leaders to generate strate-gies for decreasing the stigma surrounding mental health services.Third, when counselors work with highly enculturated AsianAmerican clients, it would be beneficial to initially focus onhelping the clients to gain more confidence about the benefits ofcounseling and to cope with the potentially negative feelings aboutentering treatment. In general, it would be important for counselorsto develop multicultural counseling competence so that both the

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outreach efforts and direct service are relevant and effective withhighly enculturated Asian American students.

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Received April 26, 2006Revision received April 27, 2007

Accepted May 1, 2007 �

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