Attitudes of Arabs in Israel toward help seeking, given levels of cultural mistrust and ethnicity of help provider.

摘要

This study was designed to explore the relationship between attitudes toward help seeking, the ethnicity of the psychological help provider, and the level of cultural mistrust toward Jews. A sample of 102 Israeli Arab undergraduate students from Haifa, Israel, participated in this study. It was hypothesized that attitudes toward help seeking, as measured by Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help-Short Form (ATSPPH-S) and the Beliefs About Psychological Services (BAPS), will be related to the ethnicity of the psychological help provider and to the level of cultural mistrust toward Jews. A 2 x 2 between subjects multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was employed. No significant relationship was found between attitudes toward help seeking, the ethnicity of the psychological help provider, and the level of cultural mistrust toward Jews. However, ANOVAs revealed that Freshmen had more favorable attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help as measured by ATSPPH-S than fourth and fifth year students and that sophomores had more favorable attitudes toward seeking psychological help as measured by BAPS than fourth and fifth year students. The results of the logistic regression indicated that Muslim and Christian participants are three times more likely to choose an Arab help provider than Druze participants. Further, the probability of choosing an Arab psychological help provider increased significantly as the participant's level of cultural mistrust, in the domains of Politics and Law and Interpersonal Relations increased. On the other hand, the probability of choosing an Arab psychological help provider decreased significantly when participants had previous psychological help, and when their level of cultural mistrust increased in the domain of Business and Work. Results indicated strong significant correlations between attitudes toward help seeking and variables such as father's highest level of education, previous psychological help, age, and year in school. Significant correlations between beliefs about psychological help and year in school and gender were found. The level of cultural mistrust correlated significantly with religion, ethnicity of psychological help provider, previous psychological help, age, and gender. Limitations and implications for future research and practice are presented.