The relationship between acculturation and the seeking of social support as a coping strategy for various life stressors among Mexican-American adults

Social support has been studied extensively as an important resource for coping. However, research on how social support is sought and used by ethnic minority groups is fairly limited. Considering the large immigrant population in the U.S., particularly in California, the current study attempts to explore variances in the social support and acculturation processes within the Mexican/ Mexican-American community of California with the intent to better inform community mental health services provided to immigrant and culturally diverse clients and families. The current study examined survey data from 48 Mexican/ Mexican-American adults living in California. Participants' levels of immersion into mainstream U.S. culture were assessed in order to explore the relationship between their acculturation profiles and what types of social support would be sought by participants when coping with five common life stressors. The types of social support consisted of family member, peer, doctor, religious leader, mental health provider, etc. The life stressors entailed: family, significant-other, financial, personal emotional/ psychological and work/ school-related stressors. There were five similar hypotheses for this study, one for each life stressor.;The results supported only the second hypothesis which predicted that levels of immersion into the U.S. would be significantly related with type of social support chosen for significant-other problems such that lower levels of U.S. immersion will be more likely related with Family Member social support, and higher levels of U.S. immersion will be more likely related with other (ie. peer, mental health professional, religious leader and self-reliance) sources of social support. The group who chose family member support had a significantly lower mean U.S. immersion score than did those who chose other kinds of support. However, through exploratory analyses, it was found that this relationship only held for females, not males. Overall, the data showed that participants would initially seek help from a close friend or family member when dealing with the various stressors. Certain limitations were inherent in the current study. Foremost was the small sample size which contributed to noticeably unequal groups on some variables like gender and generation level. For instance, there were three times more female than male participants.