Stress, coping behavior, and social support in Japan and the United States.

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine cultural similarities and differences in perceptions of stress, coping behavior, and social support within the theoretical framework of two cultural factors (individualism/collectivism and uncertainty avoidance) and five individual factors (self-construals, certainty/uncertainty orientation, tolerance for ambiguity, self-esteem, and gender). Based on a literature review and a pilot study in Japan and the United States, a questionnaire was developed to assess the patterns of coping with stress, including stress level, four types of coping behavior (avoidance-related, active-positive, problem-focused, and emotion-focused), and three types of social support (family, same-sex friends, and opposite-sex friends). Data were collected from 269 Japanese students and 256 American students. A one-way between-groups multivariate analysis of covariance was conducted to examine the influence of cultural and individual factors on the process. The results of the cultural-level analysis suggest that, compared to Japanese college students, American college students experience less stress, engage more in avoidance-related and problem-focused coping behavior, and receive more social support from family and from friends of the opposite-sex. The results of the individual-level analysis indicate that self-construals, tolerance for ambiguity, and self-esteem have different impacts on stress, coping behavior, and social support. For example, stress is influenced by the independent self-construal, tolerance for ambiguity, and individual self-esteem. Active-positive coping is influenced by self-construals and self-esteem, while avoidance-related coping is influenced only by self-construals. Social support from friends of the same-sex is influenced by self-construals and collective self-esteem, while social support from friends of the opposite-sex is influenced by tolerance for ambiguity and collective self-esteem. Among these individual factors, the interdependent self-construal is found to be the strongest factor in influencing the process of coping with stress; stress and social support from friends of the opposite-sex are not affected by the interdependent self-construal. The results also suggest that female college students engage less in avoidance-related coping and more in active-positive coping and emotion-focused coping than male college students, and that they receive more social support from family and from friends of the same-sex than do male college students. The results of the correlation analysis on key research variables show many interrelationships among the variables. Seventeen relationships show significant correlations in both Japan and the United States. Five relationships show significant correlations in Japan (but not in the United States) and fourteen relationships show significant correlations in the United States (but not in Japan). Finally, some theoretical implications of key findings are suggested in terms of the relationship between cultural individualism/collectivism and individual/collective self-esteem, the relationship between the cultural and the individual factors, the concept of avoidance in coping, the relationship between self-esteem and social support, the relationship between gender and social support from friends, the influence of self-construals on the process of coping with stress, the culture-general and the culture-specific interrelationships between research variables, and the importance of choosing comparable concepts in cross-cultural research. Additionally, practical implications for college students under stress are suggested based on the difference in coping with stress in the two cultures, the importance of social support from significant others when dealing with stress, and the average score for the stress scale for college students in the two cultures.