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Dr Ng Joo Hou (Joshua)
International Medical University (IMU)
Cultivating Trust among Malaysian Adults: Attachment Styles, Counselling, Mentoring and Collectivistic Culture
Speaker Profile
Dr Joo Hou Ng (Joshua) is a social and environmental psychologist (trained in University of Exeter, UK), also a registered and licensed counsellor in Malaysia (trained in HELP University KL). He has 10 years of counselling experience, utilizing Choice Theory Reality Therapy and Jungian psychology. He is currently a full-time lecturer at International Medical University, teaching quantitative and qualitative research methods, multi-cultural counselling, and supervising final year research projects (both undergraduates and postgraduates). As a psychology researcher, he is keen in examining the interaction of one's social identity in specific environmental contexts. He utilizes both quantitative and qualitative research methods in his research work. His area of research covers elements of stereotypes, inter-group relations, social identities and general well-being, particularly individuals in the emerging adulthood stage, within the Malaysian context that is patriarchal, collectivistic, shame-based and hierarchically-status conscious. He was the 3-minute thesis competition runner-up (University of Exeter, 2018); recipient of International Lab Visiting Award (University of Exeter, 2019); recipient of Above & Beyond Award in Postgraduate Teaching (University of Exeter, 2020); recipient of Innovation in Counselling - Bronze Award (PERKAMA, 2021); and recipient of Innovation in Counselling - Silver Award (PERKAMA, 2022).
Abstract
Trust is an important element in successful relationships and organizational performance. Taking into account the collectivistic, shame-based culture and hierarchically status conscious of the Malaysian community, when implementing two models of trust developed in the West, i.e., Model of Organizational Trust (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995) and BRAVING (Brown, 2022), tact and intentionality are vital in cultivating trust among Malaysian adults. Three studies conducted between 2022 to 2023 among Malaysian adults revealed that (1) Malaysian adults who are higher with avoidant attachment style have lower trust towards both close friends and acquaintances; avoidant attachment style is a significant negative predictor of trust towards close friends, explaining 11.2% of the sample variance; those with secure attachment style have significantly higher trust towards close friends than those with fearful attachment style; (2) mental health practitioners in Malaysia who counselled Malaysian men that experienced sexual harassment in various degrees value the trust given to them during the sessions, non-judgmental and transparent empathy are needed to aid this sub-population, frequent affirmation of safe space during the session is needed; and (3) Malaysian Christian mentors who engage with effective mentoring are sensitive to the status gap between the mentees and themselves; are intentional when cultivating trust in one-to-one, small group of threes or fours, and groups larger than five people setting; building trust with mentees takes time, transparency, intentional, and agreement of clear end-goals between mentor and mentee. These studies provide empirical evidence to support the application of the two models of trust developed in the West (Brown, 2022; Mayer et al., 1995) within the Malaysian context.
Keywords: Attachment styles, trust, Malaysian, collectivistic, intentional; safe space