- Email: [email protected]
Dimensions of personal change, coping styles, and self-actualization in a Shipboard University
REPORTSANDRESEARCHNOTES
presentation style. The sessions were generally well attended with over 30 in the audience at the oral presentations. The AAG meeting is a valuable forum for the exchange of information pertaining to tourism. The formal interchange of ideas in paper sessions, the informal trading through personal contacts, and the serendipitous transactions created by the events of the trip itself are part and parcel of such a meeting. A disquieting factor in the meeting was the small number of papers. The 15 presentations represent the smallest number since 1975 when only 12 were on the program. This decline in the quantity of research deliveries from a high of 50 in 198 1 does not detract from the quality of this meeting. It does. however, suggest a serious decline in the participation level of tourism. recreation, and sport geographers. The Program Abstracts are available from the Central Office of the Association of American Geographers, 17 10 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington DC 20009. USA, at a cost of S3.00 per copy. q q
Dimensions of Personal Change, Coping Styles, and Self-Actualization in a Shipboard University Univ. of California,
Kathryn Welds Los Angeles. USA Richard
Dukes
Univ. of Colorado, Colorado Springs. USA Considerable claims have been advanced concerning the enobling effects of educational travel, but the empirical evidence to support such enthusiastic suggestions is at best equivocal. Even before Mark Twain commented that travel is “fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrowmindedness,” devotees of tourism have asserted that travel builds international understanding through an appreciation of the qualities of individuals from other nations (Waters 1966). It has been thought that educational travel, besides being “broadening,” has an impact on modifying long-standing habit patterns and personality characteristics. The few studies of such purported changes have investigated tourists’ post-travel attitudes for application to effective marketing practices in the travel industry (British Tourist Authority 1972a. 1972b. 1972~. 1973; Shipka 1978). or upon cultural stereotypes affected by tourist contact (Pearce 1977a. 1977b. 1980: Steinkalk and Taft 1979: Trfandis and Vassiliou 1967: Triandis 1972). Little attention has been given to changes in personality traits and coping styles. but the existing reports examine such attitude-behavior orientations as ethnocentrism, fascism, and conservatism. and have offered speculation that deeply-rooted attitudes are affected by travel only after a substantial time has elapsed (Smith 1955, 1957). Methodological difficulties have riddled these rudimentary attempts to as1985 ANNALS
OF TOURISM
RESEARCH
113
REPORTS
AND RESEARCH
NOTES
sess changes in attitudes, beliefs, personality traits, and behaviors, and Bochner. Lin, and McLeod (1979) are especially critical of the tendency to use small sample sizes. few control groups, and reactive measurements. This research note contributes to the sparse literature offering a social psychological approach to evaluating the impact of educational travel upon personality characteristics and styles of functioning, and underscores the importance of questioning the comfortable assumptions that educational travel provides only positive features of personal growth and enhancement. Perhaps the appropriate research strategy lies between pure devil’s advocacy and adherence to investigating the null hypothesis posed by researchers like Pearce (1982:69): might it not be that the modern tourists. particularly those involved in group travel, have such superficial contacts with the local people that they do no more than reinforce their prevailing stereotypes and prejudices?
The Setting Semester at Sea is a shipboard-based university program currently administered by the University of Pittsburgh. Each semester, about 400 students and 25 faculty members from institutions around the world meet and begin an around-the-world journey which lasts the 100 days of a standard university semester. Each trip includes about a dozen ports of call. averaging about four days in each. The ship, the S.S. Universe, is equipped with classrooms and a library, and while the ship is at sea, students are required to pursue a full time academic workload of courses in the liberal arts, sciences, or business. In-port activities include cultural events, home visits. sightseeing, and other opportunities for face-to-face interaction with people who live in the countries visited. These activities are coordinated with the academic program in an attempt to integrate the formal learning with travel experiences. Due to the program’s structure, a collection of strangers meet in what Goffman (1961) called a “total institution” and in a short period of time. they experience a large number of changes, including the wellknown stressors outlined by Holmes and Rahe (1967).
::
The Studies
This investigation included both hypothesis-generating and empirical assessments. The first phase involved a survey ofa random sample of sixty participants at the end of the voyage. Respondents were asked a series of open-ended questions designed to investigate the nature and experience of personal changes. A second part of the investigation involved a pre-post comparison of Semester at Sea participants with a control group, on a closed-ended instrument designed to measure aspects of Maslow’s (1970) developmental approach to self-actualization (Banet 1976).
114
1985 ANNALS
OF TOURISM
RESEARCH
REPORTSANDRESEARCHNOTES
Results of Study One Forty-eight percent of the respondents noted changes they defined as significant. These experiences conformed to Flack’s (198 1: 16) description of developing “a more differentiated and sophisticated perspective.” Participants reported this type of perceptual shift by becoming less reliant on first impressions of people and places as well as becoming less judgmental. These characteristics are crucial in developing a more world-encompassing perspective combining elements of the original culture with those of the area visited (Gudykunst, Hammer. and Wiseman 1977). In addition, students stated that they became more confident of their own abilities and more independent of family’s and friends’ influence in making personal life choices. This type of self-determination was associated with increased feelings of commitment to family members. In perceiving greater options for career and lifestyles than while living in their normal environments, participants used what creativity experts have called “lateral thinking,” an experience which conforms to Flack’s perceptual shift argument. Conrad and Hedin (1982). Kagitcibase (1978). McKiernan (1980). and Wilson (1982) reported similar findings, as did Abrams (1979) who studied the impact of participation in Antioch College’s international program many years after the travel experience. Specific coping skills also developed and included increased patience, politeness, and friendliness when confronted with unexpected delays and invasions of privacy. Hammer, Gudykunst. and Wiseman (1978) alluded to the importance of this type of adaptive stress management in adjusting to differing cultures. Wishes for dramatic transformation together with “the halo effect” can cause participants in any program to overestimate the potential impact of an international experience on personal changes. Seventy percent of the participants indicated a positive assessment of the program as a whole, but ninety-five percent cited at least one area of disappointment in which the program failed to live up to expectations. The most common complaints were that participants didn’t experience revolutionary changes and that they sometimes felt depressed. resorting to less positive coping strategies than while at home. These included time wasting, chatting, drinking, and eating.
The Second Study Building upon Pearce’s (19821 social- psychological categorization of 400 positive and negative travel experiences using Maslow’s five-point hierarchy of needs, the second phase of the current investigation scrutinized Flack’s assertions concerning changes in perspective due to travel. All twenty-six members of an introductory sociology class chose to participate in a voluntary, longitudinal self-study project focusing on five dimensions of the Inventory of Self-Actualizing Characteristics (Banet 1976): acceptance of self, others, and human nature; autonomy and indepen1985 ANNALS
OF TOURISM
RESEARCH
115
REPORTSANDRESEARCHNOTES
dence of culture and environments: gemeinschaftsgefiihl, or feelings of identification, empathy, and affection for all human beings: democratic character structure, or belief in the dignity of all persons; and resistance to enculturation, or transcending racial or national distinctions. Students in the Semester at Sea program completed the inventory during the first and last weeks of the voyage in a pre-post test design.Three additional introductory sociology classes on a land campus were used as control groups. All courses were taught by the same instructor using the same curriculum material. Although members of the control groups were on the average older and less affluent than the Semester at Sea participants, other characteristics were comparable. It was hypothesized that there would be no significant difference in pretest scores for the Semester at Sea group and the controls. It was further hypothesized that post-test scores and change scores would be higher for the Semester at Sea students than for the controls, assuming that the educational travel experience was at least partially responsible for the difference.
Results of Study Two Pre-test scores for the Semester at Sea students were higher than those for the controls, suggesting that participants in the program are a select group and not directly comparable to the control group. The post-test scores for Semester at Sea students were significantly higher than those for the controls, most easily attributable to the initial group differences. The change scores were larger for Semester at Sea students than for the controls, but this trend was accompanied by significant within-group variation which negated statistical significance for this difference. The Semester at Sea change scores were especially volatile, with nearly half decreasing from pre- to post-test. Theone-half of the scores which did increase. did so by a large margin, increasing the mean for Semester at Sea students. In the control groups, only one-quarter of the scores decreased from pre- to post-test. Three quarters of these scores increased, but they did so by a smaller amount than those for the Semester at Sea students. These findings suggest that personal growth in a program like Semester at Sea is characterized by a stepwise developmental process with plateaus, steep :: rises, and setbacks. These complex results are consistent with those of the earlier survey and may be attributable to the abruptness of change, which Taft (1977) has suggested as an impediment to coping with cultural contact, particularly when a large number of distinct cultures are visited in a short time. With this type of “cultural overload” travelers . . . have little chance to adapt to each host culture . . . from a leamlng theory perspective . There might well be a negative transfer of training in these settings. in that the phrases, number systems and rituals of one 116
1985 ANNALS
OF TOURISM
RESEARCH
REPORTS AND RESEARCH NOTES
culture may actively interfere with the learning of similar contact skills in other cultures (Pearce 1982:70). Alternatively, Pearce (1982) may be correct in asserting that the motivational and behavioral components of travel have the properties of an approach -avoidance paradigm: Tourists are attracted to destinations because of the possibility of fulfilling self-actualization. love and belongingness needs and physiological needs in that order of importance. When one considers the avoidance side of the motivational paradigm, concern with safety is the predominant feature with additional emphasis on failure to satisfy psychological needs, love and belongingness and self-esteem needs . self-actualization incidents constttute a different category or type of tourist expertence which is highly valued when it occurs but cannot be directly manipulated by external factors (Pearce 1982: 129). Another interpretation attributes the results to the stress response to impending separation from the shipboard friendships and “total institution.” as well as to a return to a more routine lifestyle and the possible discrepancy between anticipated experiences and actual occurrences during the voyage. These depressed self-actualization scores are consistent with reports of “culture shock” when entering a new culture, as well as the less-discussed “culture shock” upon re-entering one’s own culture (Bainbridge 1968: Gagnon and Greenblat 1977; Gullahorn and Gullahorn 1963). This exploratory research is one attempt to go beyond the intuitive and glowing claims often made in travel literature. and to more systematically assess the measurable impact of educational travel experiences. The findings present some surprising results, pointing to the wisdom of a more circumspect approach to expectations and advertising this type of educational travel experience. q0 REFERENCES Abram% 1. 1979 The Impact of Antioch Education Through Experience Abroad. Alternative Higher Education 3: 176 - 187. Bainbridge. J. 1968 Another Way of Living. New York: Halt, Rinehart, and Winston. Banet. A. G. 1976 Inventory of Self-Actualizing Characteristics. La Jolla, CA: Untversity Associates. Bochner, S.. A. Lin and M. McLeod 1979 Cross-cultural Contact and the Development of an International Perspective. Journal of Social Psychology 107:29-41. British Tourist Authority 1972a The Chicago Workshop: The United States Travel Market. Research Newsletter 7 (Winter). 1985 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH
117
REPORTSANDRESEARCHNOTES
1972b The Toronto Workshop: The Canadian Travel Market. Research Newsletter. 7 (Winter]. 1972~ Attitudes to Travel Among Affluent Adult Holidaymakers in Holland. Germany and France1972. Research Newsletter 6 (Autumn). 1973 Travelers to the UK from Brazil and the Argentine1972. Research Newsletter 10 (Autumn). Conrad. D. and D. Hedin 1982 The Impact of Experiential Education on Adolescent Development. Child and Youth Services 4~57-76. Flack. M. J. 198 1 Experiential Learning in Transnational Contexts. In Cross Cultural Learning. C. B. Neff. ed. pp. 1 1 - 19. San Francisco. CA: Jossey-Bass. Gagnon. J. and C. Greenblat 1977 Temporary Strangers: Travel and Tourism from a Sociological Perspective. Unpublished paper. Goffman. E. 1961 Asylums. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Gudykunst. W., M. Hammer and R. Wiseman 1977 Determinants of a Sojourner’s Attitudinal Satisfaction: A Path Model. In Communication Yearbook, B. Rubin. ed. New Brunswick. NJ: Transaction. Inc. Gullahorn. J. E. and J. T. Gullahorn 1963 An Extension of the U-curve Hypothesis. Journal of Social Issues 19: 33-47. Hammer. M.. W. Gudykunst and R. Wiseman 1978 Dimensions of Intercultural Effectiveness: An Exploratory Study. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 2:384-389. Holmes, R. H. and R. H. Rahe 1967 Social Readjustment Scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 11:213218. Kagltcibasi. C. 1978 Cross-national Encounters: Turkish Students in the United States. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 2: 14 1 - 156. MacCannell. D. 1976 The Tourist. New York: Schocken Books. Maslow, A. 1970 Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper and Row. McKiernan. J. 1980 An Evaluation of the Consortium for Overseas Student Teaching and its Effect on the Expressed Self-acceptance of Others on its Participants. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Alabama. Pearce, P. L. 1977a The Social and Environmental Perceptions of Overseas Tourists. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Oxford. 1977b Mental Souvenirs: A Study of Tourists and Their City Maps. Australian Journal of Psychology 29:203- 2 10. 1980 A Favorability-satisfaction Model of Tourists’ Evaluation. Journal of Travel Research 14(l): 13- 17. 1982 The Social Psychology of Tourist Behavior. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Shipka. B. 1978 International Travel Outlook. Proceedings 1978 Travel Outlook Forum. pp. 133 - 157. Washington, DC: United States Travel Data Center.
118
1985 ANNALS
OF TOURISM
RESEARCH
REPORTSANDRESEARCHNOTES
Smith. H. P. 1955 Do Intercultural Experiences Affect Attitudes? Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 51:469-477. 1957 The Effects of Intercultural Experience: A Follow-up Investigation. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 54:266-269. Steinkalk. E. and R. Taft 1979 The Effect of a Planned Intercultural Experience on the Attitudes and Behavior of the Participants. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 3(2):187- 198. Taft. R. 1977 Coping with Unfamiliar Cultures. In Studies in Cross Cultural Psychology. vol. 1, N. Warren, ed. London: Academic Press. Triandis. H. C. 1972 The Analysis of Subjective Culture. New York: Wiley. Triandis. H. C. and V. Vassiliou 1967 Frequency of Contact and Stereotyping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 7:316-328. Waters, S. R. 1966 The American Tourist. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 368: 109- 118. Wilson. A. H. 1982 Cross-cultural Experiential Learning for Teachers. Theory into Practice 21:184-192.
1984 TTRA Conference Steve Ilium Inst. of Transportation, Travel and Tourism Niagara University, USA The 15th Annual Conference of the Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA) was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA) from June 24 - 27, 1984. The conference was well-received by most participants, but raised some questions by some as to future direction for TTRA. Sunday, June 24 was devoted to pre-conference meetings (TTRA Board, editorial board, TTRA chapters, the President’s Advisory Committee, etc.), and a half-day tourism educators’ session, “Management Simulation Seminar” conducted by members of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. The afternoon followed with a Travel Research Workshop. Thisyear’s 15 workshop papers were pre-selected by referees and were in a publication separate from the regular conference proceedings. As usual, few industry types were in attendance for the presentations. Nearly all presentations were reports of applied research projects. The conference officially opened on Monday morning. After the inaugural addresses, keynote speaker, Donna Tuttle, Undersecretary of Commerce for Travel and Tourism spoke of problems and solutions for collection. storage, and use of government research data. Then a U.S. industry
1985 ANNALS
OF TOURISM
RESEARCH
119
presentation style. The sessions were generally well attended with over 30 in the audience at the oral presentations. The AAG meeting is a valuable forum for the exchange of information pertaining to tourism. The formal interchange of ideas in paper sessions, the informal trading through personal contacts, and the serendipitous transactions created by the events of the trip itself are part and parcel of such a meeting. A disquieting factor in the meeting was the small number of papers. The 15 presentations represent the smallest number since 1975 when only 12 were on the program. This decline in the quantity of research deliveries from a high of 50 in 198 1 does not detract from the quality of this meeting. It does. however, suggest a serious decline in the participation level of tourism. recreation, and sport geographers. The Program Abstracts are available from the Central Office of the Association of American Geographers, 17 10 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington DC 20009. USA, at a cost of S3.00 per copy. q q
Dimensions of Personal Change, Coping Styles, and Self-Actualization in a Shipboard University Univ. of California,
Kathryn Welds Los Angeles. USA Richard
Dukes
Univ. of Colorado, Colorado Springs. USA Considerable claims have been advanced concerning the enobling effects of educational travel, but the empirical evidence to support such enthusiastic suggestions is at best equivocal. Even before Mark Twain commented that travel is “fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrowmindedness,” devotees of tourism have asserted that travel builds international understanding through an appreciation of the qualities of individuals from other nations (Waters 1966). It has been thought that educational travel, besides being “broadening,” has an impact on modifying long-standing habit patterns and personality characteristics. The few studies of such purported changes have investigated tourists’ post-travel attitudes for application to effective marketing practices in the travel industry (British Tourist Authority 1972a. 1972b. 1972~. 1973; Shipka 1978). or upon cultural stereotypes affected by tourist contact (Pearce 1977a. 1977b. 1980: Steinkalk and Taft 1979: Trfandis and Vassiliou 1967: Triandis 1972). Little attention has been given to changes in personality traits and coping styles. but the existing reports examine such attitude-behavior orientations as ethnocentrism, fascism, and conservatism. and have offered speculation that deeply-rooted attitudes are affected by travel only after a substantial time has elapsed (Smith 1955, 1957). Methodological difficulties have riddled these rudimentary attempts to as1985 ANNALS
OF TOURISM
RESEARCH
113
REPORTS
AND RESEARCH
NOTES
sess changes in attitudes, beliefs, personality traits, and behaviors, and Bochner. Lin, and McLeod (1979) are especially critical of the tendency to use small sample sizes. few control groups, and reactive measurements. This research note contributes to the sparse literature offering a social psychological approach to evaluating the impact of educational travel upon personality characteristics and styles of functioning, and underscores the importance of questioning the comfortable assumptions that educational travel provides only positive features of personal growth and enhancement. Perhaps the appropriate research strategy lies between pure devil’s advocacy and adherence to investigating the null hypothesis posed by researchers like Pearce (1982:69): might it not be that the modern tourists. particularly those involved in group travel, have such superficial contacts with the local people that they do no more than reinforce their prevailing stereotypes and prejudices?
The Setting Semester at Sea is a shipboard-based university program currently administered by the University of Pittsburgh. Each semester, about 400 students and 25 faculty members from institutions around the world meet and begin an around-the-world journey which lasts the 100 days of a standard university semester. Each trip includes about a dozen ports of call. averaging about four days in each. The ship, the S.S. Universe, is equipped with classrooms and a library, and while the ship is at sea, students are required to pursue a full time academic workload of courses in the liberal arts, sciences, or business. In-port activities include cultural events, home visits. sightseeing, and other opportunities for face-to-face interaction with people who live in the countries visited. These activities are coordinated with the academic program in an attempt to integrate the formal learning with travel experiences. Due to the program’s structure, a collection of strangers meet in what Goffman (1961) called a “total institution” and in a short period of time. they experience a large number of changes, including the wellknown stressors outlined by Holmes and Rahe (1967).
::
The Studies
This investigation included both hypothesis-generating and empirical assessments. The first phase involved a survey ofa random sample of sixty participants at the end of the voyage. Respondents were asked a series of open-ended questions designed to investigate the nature and experience of personal changes. A second part of the investigation involved a pre-post comparison of Semester at Sea participants with a control group, on a closed-ended instrument designed to measure aspects of Maslow’s (1970) developmental approach to self-actualization (Banet 1976).
114
1985 ANNALS
OF TOURISM
RESEARCH
REPORTSANDRESEARCHNOTES
Results of Study One Forty-eight percent of the respondents noted changes they defined as significant. These experiences conformed to Flack’s (198 1: 16) description of developing “a more differentiated and sophisticated perspective.” Participants reported this type of perceptual shift by becoming less reliant on first impressions of people and places as well as becoming less judgmental. These characteristics are crucial in developing a more world-encompassing perspective combining elements of the original culture with those of the area visited (Gudykunst, Hammer. and Wiseman 1977). In addition, students stated that they became more confident of their own abilities and more independent of family’s and friends’ influence in making personal life choices. This type of self-determination was associated with increased feelings of commitment to family members. In perceiving greater options for career and lifestyles than while living in their normal environments, participants used what creativity experts have called “lateral thinking,” an experience which conforms to Flack’s perceptual shift argument. Conrad and Hedin (1982). Kagitcibase (1978). McKiernan (1980). and Wilson (1982) reported similar findings, as did Abrams (1979) who studied the impact of participation in Antioch College’s international program many years after the travel experience. Specific coping skills also developed and included increased patience, politeness, and friendliness when confronted with unexpected delays and invasions of privacy. Hammer, Gudykunst. and Wiseman (1978) alluded to the importance of this type of adaptive stress management in adjusting to differing cultures. Wishes for dramatic transformation together with “the halo effect” can cause participants in any program to overestimate the potential impact of an international experience on personal changes. Seventy percent of the participants indicated a positive assessment of the program as a whole, but ninety-five percent cited at least one area of disappointment in which the program failed to live up to expectations. The most common complaints were that participants didn’t experience revolutionary changes and that they sometimes felt depressed. resorting to less positive coping strategies than while at home. These included time wasting, chatting, drinking, and eating.
The Second Study Building upon Pearce’s (19821 social- psychological categorization of 400 positive and negative travel experiences using Maslow’s five-point hierarchy of needs, the second phase of the current investigation scrutinized Flack’s assertions concerning changes in perspective due to travel. All twenty-six members of an introductory sociology class chose to participate in a voluntary, longitudinal self-study project focusing on five dimensions of the Inventory of Self-Actualizing Characteristics (Banet 1976): acceptance of self, others, and human nature; autonomy and indepen1985 ANNALS
OF TOURISM
RESEARCH
115
REPORTSANDRESEARCHNOTES
dence of culture and environments: gemeinschaftsgefiihl, or feelings of identification, empathy, and affection for all human beings: democratic character structure, or belief in the dignity of all persons; and resistance to enculturation, or transcending racial or national distinctions. Students in the Semester at Sea program completed the inventory during the first and last weeks of the voyage in a pre-post test design.Three additional introductory sociology classes on a land campus were used as control groups. All courses were taught by the same instructor using the same curriculum material. Although members of the control groups were on the average older and less affluent than the Semester at Sea participants, other characteristics were comparable. It was hypothesized that there would be no significant difference in pretest scores for the Semester at Sea group and the controls. It was further hypothesized that post-test scores and change scores would be higher for the Semester at Sea students than for the controls, assuming that the educational travel experience was at least partially responsible for the difference.
Results of Study Two Pre-test scores for the Semester at Sea students were higher than those for the controls, suggesting that participants in the program are a select group and not directly comparable to the control group. The post-test scores for Semester at Sea students were significantly higher than those for the controls, most easily attributable to the initial group differences. The change scores were larger for Semester at Sea students than for the controls, but this trend was accompanied by significant within-group variation which negated statistical significance for this difference. The Semester at Sea change scores were especially volatile, with nearly half decreasing from pre- to post-test. Theone-half of the scores which did increase. did so by a large margin, increasing the mean for Semester at Sea students. In the control groups, only one-quarter of the scores decreased from pre- to post-test. Three quarters of these scores increased, but they did so by a smaller amount than those for the Semester at Sea students. These findings suggest that personal growth in a program like Semester at Sea is characterized by a stepwise developmental process with plateaus, steep :: rises, and setbacks. These complex results are consistent with those of the earlier survey and may be attributable to the abruptness of change, which Taft (1977) has suggested as an impediment to coping with cultural contact, particularly when a large number of distinct cultures are visited in a short time. With this type of “cultural overload” travelers . . . have little chance to adapt to each host culture . . . from a leamlng theory perspective . There might well be a negative transfer of training in these settings. in that the phrases, number systems and rituals of one 116
1985 ANNALS
OF TOURISM
RESEARCH
REPORTS AND RESEARCH NOTES
culture may actively interfere with the learning of similar contact skills in other cultures (Pearce 1982:70). Alternatively, Pearce (1982) may be correct in asserting that the motivational and behavioral components of travel have the properties of an approach -avoidance paradigm: Tourists are attracted to destinations because of the possibility of fulfilling self-actualization. love and belongingness needs and physiological needs in that order of importance. When one considers the avoidance side of the motivational paradigm, concern with safety is the predominant feature with additional emphasis on failure to satisfy psychological needs, love and belongingness and self-esteem needs . self-actualization incidents constttute a different category or type of tourist expertence which is highly valued when it occurs but cannot be directly manipulated by external factors (Pearce 1982: 129). Another interpretation attributes the results to the stress response to impending separation from the shipboard friendships and “total institution.” as well as to a return to a more routine lifestyle and the possible discrepancy between anticipated experiences and actual occurrences during the voyage. These depressed self-actualization scores are consistent with reports of “culture shock” when entering a new culture, as well as the less-discussed “culture shock” upon re-entering one’s own culture (Bainbridge 1968: Gagnon and Greenblat 1977; Gullahorn and Gullahorn 1963). This exploratory research is one attempt to go beyond the intuitive and glowing claims often made in travel literature. and to more systematically assess the measurable impact of educational travel experiences. The findings present some surprising results, pointing to the wisdom of a more circumspect approach to expectations and advertising this type of educational travel experience. q0 REFERENCES Abram% 1. 1979 The Impact of Antioch Education Through Experience Abroad. Alternative Higher Education 3: 176 - 187. Bainbridge. J. 1968 Another Way of Living. New York: Halt, Rinehart, and Winston. Banet. A. G. 1976 Inventory of Self-Actualizing Characteristics. La Jolla, CA: Untversity Associates. Bochner, S.. A. Lin and M. McLeod 1979 Cross-cultural Contact and the Development of an International Perspective. Journal of Social Psychology 107:29-41. British Tourist Authority 1972a The Chicago Workshop: The United States Travel Market. Research Newsletter 7 (Winter). 1985 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH
117
REPORTSANDRESEARCHNOTES
1972b The Toronto Workshop: The Canadian Travel Market. Research Newsletter. 7 (Winter]. 1972~ Attitudes to Travel Among Affluent Adult Holidaymakers in Holland. Germany and France1972. Research Newsletter 6 (Autumn). 1973 Travelers to the UK from Brazil and the Argentine1972. Research Newsletter 10 (Autumn). Conrad. D. and D. Hedin 1982 The Impact of Experiential Education on Adolescent Development. Child and Youth Services 4~57-76. Flack. M. J. 198 1 Experiential Learning in Transnational Contexts. In Cross Cultural Learning. C. B. Neff. ed. pp. 1 1 - 19. San Francisco. CA: Jossey-Bass. Gagnon. J. and C. Greenblat 1977 Temporary Strangers: Travel and Tourism from a Sociological Perspective. Unpublished paper. Goffman. E. 1961 Asylums. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Gudykunst. W., M. Hammer and R. Wiseman 1977 Determinants of a Sojourner’s Attitudinal Satisfaction: A Path Model. In Communication Yearbook, B. Rubin. ed. New Brunswick. NJ: Transaction. Inc. Gullahorn. J. E. and J. T. Gullahorn 1963 An Extension of the U-curve Hypothesis. Journal of Social Issues 19: 33-47. Hammer. M.. W. Gudykunst and R. Wiseman 1978 Dimensions of Intercultural Effectiveness: An Exploratory Study. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 2:384-389. Holmes, R. H. and R. H. Rahe 1967 Social Readjustment Scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 11:213218. Kagltcibasi. C. 1978 Cross-national Encounters: Turkish Students in the United States. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 2: 14 1 - 156. MacCannell. D. 1976 The Tourist. New York: Schocken Books. Maslow, A. 1970 Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper and Row. McKiernan. J. 1980 An Evaluation of the Consortium for Overseas Student Teaching and its Effect on the Expressed Self-acceptance of Others on its Participants. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Alabama. Pearce, P. L. 1977a The Social and Environmental Perceptions of Overseas Tourists. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Oxford. 1977b Mental Souvenirs: A Study of Tourists and Their City Maps. Australian Journal of Psychology 29:203- 2 10. 1980 A Favorability-satisfaction Model of Tourists’ Evaluation. Journal of Travel Research 14(l): 13- 17. 1982 The Social Psychology of Tourist Behavior. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Shipka. B. 1978 International Travel Outlook. Proceedings 1978 Travel Outlook Forum. pp. 133 - 157. Washington, DC: United States Travel Data Center.
118
1985 ANNALS
OF TOURISM
RESEARCH
REPORTSANDRESEARCHNOTES
Smith. H. P. 1955 Do Intercultural Experiences Affect Attitudes? Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 51:469-477. 1957 The Effects of Intercultural Experience: A Follow-up Investigation. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 54:266-269. Steinkalk. E. and R. Taft 1979 The Effect of a Planned Intercultural Experience on the Attitudes and Behavior of the Participants. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 3(2):187- 198. Taft. R. 1977 Coping with Unfamiliar Cultures. In Studies in Cross Cultural Psychology. vol. 1, N. Warren, ed. London: Academic Press. Triandis. H. C. 1972 The Analysis of Subjective Culture. New York: Wiley. Triandis. H. C. and V. Vassiliou 1967 Frequency of Contact and Stereotyping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 7:316-328. Waters, S. R. 1966 The American Tourist. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 368: 109- 118. Wilson. A. H. 1982 Cross-cultural Experiential Learning for Teachers. Theory into Practice 21:184-192.
1984 TTRA Conference Steve Ilium Inst. of Transportation, Travel and Tourism Niagara University, USA The 15th Annual Conference of the Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA) was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA) from June 24 - 27, 1984. The conference was well-received by most participants, but raised some questions by some as to future direction for TTRA. Sunday, June 24 was devoted to pre-conference meetings (TTRA Board, editorial board, TTRA chapters, the President’s Advisory Committee, etc.), and a half-day tourism educators’ session, “Management Simulation Seminar” conducted by members of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. The afternoon followed with a Travel Research Workshop. Thisyear’s 15 workshop papers were pre-selected by referees and were in a publication separate from the regular conference proceedings. As usual, few industry types were in attendance for the presentations. Nearly all presentations were reports of applied research projects. The conference officially opened on Monday morning. After the inaugural addresses, keynote speaker, Donna Tuttle, Undersecretary of Commerce for Travel and Tourism spoke of problems and solutions for collection. storage, and use of government research data. Then a U.S. industry
1985 ANNALS
OF TOURISM
RESEARCH
119