Effects of Cross-Cultural Training on Helper Response

This study investigated the effects of cross-cultural training on participants' empathic response, attending behavior, and anxiety during interviews with a culturally dissimilar Black client. Thirty-one White graduate trainees in counseling were randomly assigned to treatment/no-treatment conditions; the treatment group was exposed to cross-cultural training. Trained judges rated videotaped excerpts of trainee performance on empathy and attending behavior variables; a self-report measure of anxiety was used. The overall results of the multivariate analysis of variance indicated no significant difference between treatment and control group trainees on the three dependent variables. The findings are examined and implications for cross-cultural training and research are discussed.