Students experience various failures in their school life. Failure to pass an entrance examination is one of the most serious failures for students in Japan. Support from the people around them is indispensable in rebuilding their spirits and making a new start at another school. Since adolescence is a time when “significant others” shift from parents to peers, encouragement from close friends is considered effective. However, some students are unable to accept such encouragement. Therefore, we examined the four types of students (secure, preoccupied, dismissing and fearful) in the internal working model. Then we investigated what kind of encouragement from close friends they would accept in such a serious failure situation.

Methods
Participants were 212 university students (53 male, 159 female).
Internal Working Model scale (Nakao and Kato, 2004). Eight types of encouragement (Ogawa and Nakazawa, 2014 and Nakano and Masaho, 2011); B1. words of sympathy, B2. words of perspective shift, B3. words of advice, B4. words of encouragement, B5. words of offer of help respecting his or her pace, B6. different topics or jokes, B7. indirect encouragement, B8. physical contact.

Results and Discussion
The preoccupied group was less likely to accept encouragement from friends compared to the secure group (F= 5.347, df=3/208, p<.001). However, the only encouragement that they could accept were from B1, B2, and B5. Based on these results, we will discuss what kind of encouragement is effective for students who have difficulty accepting encouragement from close friends.

Authors:
Kumiko Yoshitake, Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University, Japan

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Kumiko Yoshitake is a University Professor/Principal Lecturer at Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University in Japan

See this presentation on the full schedule – Wednesday Schedule

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