There is one other possible reason which always must be considered when cross-cultural or cross-national comparisons are being made. Are there some powerful societal norms that help to determine the actions to be taken? In the domain of human services, we might find that personal failings are stigmatized. These failings (and related fears and depressive thoughts) must be kept out of public view. They are to be confined as “secrets” that are held by family members (and perhaps some religious official who, in some form, can hear “confessions”).
In these cultures, not only is professional coaching (and many other human services) not fully accepted—any “exposure” of a client receiving these services is unwelcomed. This push toward secrecy might even apply to asking another professional to do work with a difficult coaching client. Problems are hidden even if this means not receiving proper care. I would suggest that this problem of secrecy (and the fear of stigma associated with revealing any personal failing) is not confined to non-USA cultures. It to be found in the USA as well – it might just not be as great a problem in the USA (or as readily acknowledged).
Developmental Growth and Self-Reliance
In reviewing the results obtained, it should first be noted that nonsignificant differences were prevalent (as is the case with most of the analyses done regarding differences between USA and non-USA coaches). Nevertheless, there are two of the questions that yield near significant (<.10) results, which introduces several additional hypotheses for further testing. The first item is “Do you feel you are becoming more skillful in practicing coaching” The non-USA coaches scored slightly higher than the USA coaches on this item. Similarly, on a second question (“Do you feel a growing enthusiasm about doing coaching”), the non-USA respondents scored slightly higher (near significance at ,10 level). As always, we need to very cautious about arriving at conclusions regarding these marginal differences between the two respondent groups.
