A Comparative Study On Stress-coping Strategies Between Chinese And American University Students

Despite the prolific research in the coping field, coping in Chinese communities still leaves important topics uncovered. Coping research in China is largely restricted to cross-sectional studies that attempt to identify the coping styles of different groups. It does not attempt to explain why coping strategies are different in China or to clarify how culture affects the process of coping. In addition, most of the research related to coping has focused on coping methods rather than on coping objectives or goals that underlie these methods.Addressing this gap, the present study seeks to examine the role of culture in the coping processes by applying a control-related model of coping that focuses on the coping strategies of Chinese university students and American university students through control orientations. The coping strategies can be divided into external control strategies (i.e., attempts to control the environment) and internal control strategies (i.e., attempts to control the self). 81 American and 105 Chinese university students recall a stressful life event and report their coping strategies and their scores are compared.Through a quantitative analysis of the data, the results reveal that Chinese university students are more inclined to use internal coping strategies, specifically, self-control, waiting things out and beliefs in fate than American university students. However, contrary to previous findings, there are no significant cultural differences on the internal coping scales of distancing and accepting responsibility and positive reappraisal. The Chinese participants score only slightly higher on the three internal control coping scales. Besides, consistent with previous findings, the external coping scale of confrontation is more prevalent among the American University students. But as regards the other external coping scale, planful problem solving, no significant difference is found between the two groups. As regards to the coping scale of seeking social support, Chinese university students seem to be less likely to seek social support than their American counterparts. The study concludes that the Chinese use slightly more internal control copings than their American counterparts, but the coping strategies used by both parties are balanced in general, incorporating both internal control and external control coping strategies. Despite cultural preferences, the research reveals that there are still many shared experiences in the stress coping scenario of American and Chinese university students.