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Coping Styles and Socio-demographic Variables as Predictors of Psychological Well-Being among International Students Belonging to Different Cultures

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Abstract

The study examined whether coping styles (reflective, suppressive, and reactive coping) predict the level of psychological well-being among international students, studying at German universities and living in a situation where the impact of acculturation stress is supposed to be rather high. In particular, we looked for any differences in preferred coping styles of university students belonging to diverse cultures to find out whether there are differential associations between coping styles and culture. The participants were 235 Asian, 204 European, and 94 Latin American students who were recruited with the support of offices of student’s affairs of universities. They completed an online survey comprising the WHO Well-Being Index (WHO-5), the Problem-focused Styles of Coping Inventory (PF-SOC), Student Stress Inventory (SSI), and a socio-demographic questionnaire. After controlling for socio-demographic variables which showed hardly any influence on well-being, coping exerted a high influence on the affective and functional state of international students. Suppressive coping turned out to be a relatively stronger predictor of a low level of psychological well-being in all three cultural groups, whereas reflective coping is predictive of a high level of psychological well-being. Also, reactive coping is rather dysfunctional but much less so than suppressive coping. Cultural group was found to be a significant predictor of coping styles. There were no significant differences in the level of well-being among the cultural groups, with about 40% being beyond a cut-off point signalling a depressive state. Counseling services need to pay attention to the relatively high percentage of students with poor psychological wellbeing. Improving students’ coping strategies may be an efficient way to improve their psychological well-being in academic/university and general life contexts.

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Notes

  1. sex was measured in the current study which is a biological fact and remain same across different cultures

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Humanities, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Park Road, Chak Shahzad, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Mubeen Akhtar

  2. Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Georg Elias Mueller Institute of Psychology, Georg August University Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany

    Mubeen Akhtar & Birgit Kroener-Herwig

Authors
  1. Mubeen Akhtar
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  2. Birgit Kroener-Herwig
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Correspondence to Mubeen Akhtar or Birgit Kroener-Herwig.

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Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.

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Informed consent was obtained from all the individual participants included in the study.

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The research was not funded by any organization.

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Akhtar, M., Kroener-Herwig, B. Coping Styles and Socio-demographic Variables as Predictors of Psychological Well-Being among International Students Belonging to Different Cultures. Curr Psychol 38, 618–626 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9635-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9635-3

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