Social Support Willingness And Behavior Of Chinese To Foreigners In China

Millions of foreigners had come to China for travelling, learning, working or other purpose.This number is still rapidly increasing. So how to help those foreigners adapted in China becomes a practical problem.Lots of researches had found social support from host country can improve the cultural adaption of sojourners. But few research focus on the social support behavior of host county people. This study chose China as the host country to research the Chinese's social support behavior to foreigners in China.To find the willingness of Chinese people to provide social support to the foreigners in China and their social support behavior, this research selected two respondent groups.One group contained Chinese people who have actual contact with foreigners form America, France, Germany, Japan and South Korea; the other were those who have no such experience.487 respondents from 4 cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, answered a questionnaire which consists of variables about Willingness to Provide Social Support, Social Support Behavior, Social Distance, Multicultural Personality Questionnaire, Cross-Cultural Communication Self-Efficacy and Language Skill.Some differences were found in the willingness and behavior of providing social support to people form 5 different countries. Willingness to provide social support to Japanese was significantly lower than to other foreigners, but no difference appeared in the social support behavior. Female got higher score in Willingness to Provide Social Support. Compared to college students, on-job person scored higher in both Willingness to Provide Social Support and Social Support Behavior. To different goal country, past contacting experience have various influences on willingness to provide social support and social support behavior.Examined by SEM, several hypotheses were confirmed. Willingness to provide was directly influenced by Social Distance. Multicultural Personality had direct influence on Willingness to Provide Social Support as well as indirect effect via Social Distance.Willingness to Provide Social Support and Cross-Cultural Communication Self-Efficacy can predict Social Support Behavior. However, Multicultural Personality influences Social Support Behavior via Social Distance, Willingness to Provide Social Support and Cross-Cultural Communication Self-Efficacy.