Personality Changes Associated with a Sojourn in Japan

Abstract

In order to determine whether personality changes occur in teenagers during 1-month homestays in Japan, the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) was administered to 154 exchange students and to 112 control students who did not travel abroad. The CPI was administered prior to the exchange, again at its conclusion, and a third time 4 months later. Antecedent information was collected using a pre-exchange questionnaire. Analysis of covariance was used to determine whether the pretest and posttest scores for the two groups were significantly different. Non-parametric tests were used to determine whether overseas group antecedent sub-populations changed differently. The overseas group increased in flexibility and independence and became less conventional compared with the control group. Exchangees who were the first members of their families to travel abroad and those who personally paid a high percentage of their trip expenses changed the most. Travelers who had studied a foreign language for one or two semesters experienced no significant changes; those with no previous language study and those who had studied a language for three or four semesters changed significantly.