Narratives of effort among Chinese, Hungarian and Chinese immigrant students in Hungary.

The present study aimed to reveal the effect of migration processes on the conceptualisation of effort involving two cultures with different approaches towards effort: China with an effort-promoting mindset and Hungary with an effort-repressing mindset. In the study, narrative approach was used in cross-sectional design involving Chinese, Hungarian and Chinese immigrant students living in Hungary. Altogether 139 students-49 Hungarian, 47 Chinese, 43 Chinese immigrants-aged 13-15 years provided narratives on past personal effort. Content analyses were done on 222 narratives. The results showed that the Chinese narratives of effort were characterised by learning and achievement orientation with elaborated effort process. In contrast, the Hungarian narratives were characterised by relationship orientation and emotional coping with a non-elaborated effort process. The narratives of the Chinese immigrants showed great similarity to those of the Chinese students reflecting academic effort, achievement goals and elaborated process. The findings suggest that the traditional Chinese approach towards effort persists in cultural transition, and academic effort tends to be a primary resource for educational success for the Chinese immigrant students in Hungary.

Rebound Effect, Fast Adaptation to Social Change or Cultural Continuity among Two Generations of Hungarians / Efecto de Rebote, Rápida Adaptación al Cambio Social o Contiuidad Cultural entre Dos Generaciones de Húngaros

Abstract The aim of the present research was to reveal what kind of values, self-conceptualisation and beliefs of personhood characterize two generations of Hungarians, almost three decades after the socio-political changes from socialism to capitalist market economy. Participants were high school students (N = 239) and adults (N = 122). Value-orientation was measured using the Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ, Schwartz et al., 2001), beliefs of personhood were measured by the Lay Contextualism Scale (Owe et al., 2013). Self-construals were measured in case of the high school students by using 23 items from Gudykunst et al. (1996) self-construal scale and in case of the adults a modified version of it (Owe et al., 2013). Results indicate that in the post-socialist Hungary, individualistic values and independent self-concept strongly characterize both the high school students and the adults, but the younger generation displays higher tendency towards individualism.

Resumen El objetivo del presente trabajo fue encontrar qué tipo de valores, auto-conceptuación y creencias de la persona caracterizan dos generaciones de húngaros, casi tres décadas después de los cambios sociopolíticos del socialismo al mercado económico capitalista. Los participantes fueron estudiantes universitarios (N=239) y adultos (N=122). La orientación hacia los valores fue evaluada utilizando el Cuestionario de Valores (PVQ, Portrait Value Questionnaire; Schwartz et al., 2001), las creencias sobre la persona fueron evaluados a través de la Escala de Contextualismo (Owe et al., 2013), las auto-definiciones fueron evaluadas utilizando los 23 reactivos de la escala de autodefinición de Gudykunst et al. (1996) para el caso de los estudiantes, y para los adultos se utilizó la versión modificada del instrumento de autodefinición (Owe et al., 2013). Los resultados indican que, en la Hungría post-socialista, los valores individualistas y un autoconcepto independiente caracterizan fuertemente a ambos grupos, aunque la generación más joven muestra mayor tendencia hacia el individualismo.