The Psychological Benefits and Costs of Studying Abroad: Perspectives of Cultural Psychology

Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2020-10-19

廖珊慧 胡晓檬

Abstract： The number of Chinese International students who are currently studying abroad is huge. They are widely distributed worldwide and have many problems. Among those issues, mental health, cultural adaptation, and societal discrimination, etc. are particularly prominent ones. Drawing upon perspectives of cultural psychology, our current work seeks to sort out the psychological benefits and costs of International students from experiences of studying abroad. Past work shows that students with experiences studying abroad have higher cross-cultural competence, higher openness personality, and stronger sense of self-efficacy. However, experiences of studying abroad will also cause students to be more likely to have anxiety and depression, lower social support, more loneliness, and perceive greater prejudice and discrimination from outgroups. We will review these psychological benefits and psychological costs, and uncover the mental mechanisms underlie these phenomena. It is our hope that our work can provide meaningful scientific questions, plausible theoretical frameworks and robust empirical evidence to facilitate future research in this domain.

Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review

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