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Article Excerpt
The Cross-Cultural Coping Scale, a scenario-based instrument, was developed in 3 studies. Exploratory factor analyses with Chinese Canadian adolescents (N = 506) showed a 3-factor structure: Collective, Avoidance, and Engagement Coping. The model was reproduced very well in a confirmatory factor analysis. Participant acculturation, self-construals, and religious affiliations were related to coping dimensions.
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When in stress, individuals from North America may heed the advice to "pick your self up by your own bootstraps" or "take the bull by the horns." According to these North American idioms, the individual is the sole agent in the coping process. In contrast, there is increasing evidence that individuals from collectivistic societies, such as Asians, engage in coping that reflects their interdependent tendencies (Lam & Zane, 2004). For example, a stressed Chinese individual may take comfort in such aphorisms as "riding in the same boat," "sharing a common destiny," and "brotherhood in adversity." In Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, when the internal dialogue shifts from "What's in it for me?" to "How can I help?" the individual goes beyond the ego into the domain of social duty or dharma. These North American and Asian sayings reflect differences in the psychology of Westerners and Easterners along the lines of independent-interdependent self-construals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Studies on Asian self-construal (Cousins, 1989; Cross, 1995; Yeh, Inose, Kobori, & Chang, 2001) suggest a link between interdependent self-construal and collectivistic coping. In addition, relationships may exist between the acculturation of Asians to North American societies and their ways of coping (Roysircar & Maestas, 2002). We present the development of a coping scale that is conceptualized within the constructs of collectivism, self-construal, and acculturation.
Some authors (e.g., Dunahoo, Hobfoll, Monnier, Hulsizer, & Johnson, 1998) argued that coping research does not capture the diversity of coping among culturally diverse populations. Of late, preliminary findings suggest distinct preferences for self-directed (individualistic) versus other-directed (collectivistic) coping (Yeh, Chang, Arora, Kim, & Xin, 2003). The latter is exemplified in Asian individuals seeking familial guidance rather than professional counseling at a time of crisis (Yeh & Wang, 2000). There is a need to measure the extent to which culturally diverse individuals use collectivistic and individualistic coping and how these vary along acculturation levels and self-construals.
CULTURE AND COPING
Studies in Asian countries and in the United States suggest multidimensionality in Asian coping, but these studies universally include aspects of collectivism and a values orientation.
Asian Internationals
Zheng and Berry (1991) reported that Chinese international students in Canada were more actively engaged in coping (such as implementing tension reduction and information-seeking strategies) and were less passive (such as engaging in wishful thinking and self-blame) than were non-Chinese Canadians. Neill and Proeve (2000) used assessment items that referred to others as resources, along with items that focused on the self. Neill and Proeve found that Southeast Asians used more "reference to others" coping strategies than did their Australian counterparts. Shek and Cheung (1990) found that working parents in Hong Kong coped by relying on themselves as well as by seeking help from others. Hwang (1979) found that Chinese men in Taiwan whose coping style was more collectivistic reported lower interpersonal stress and less symptomatology than did Chinese men who used more self-assertion. Both Anglo-American and Japanese study participants (Kawanishi, 1995) agreed that successful coping depends mostly on one's own effort. However, Japanese participants also agreed much more strongly than did White Americans that successful coping depends mostly on luck and that stressful events are brought on by bad luck. Thus, internal attributions were not exclusive of external attributions, and vice versa (Kawanishi, 1995).
Asian Americans
Lam and Zane (2004) found that Asian American college students coped with interpersonal stressors by using more strategies to change themselves to adjust to others and fewer strategies to change the environment or stressors than did their White American counterparts. These differences between Asian American and White American coping patterns were mediated by divergent self-construals: interdependence of Asians and independence of Whites. Although Japanese Americans were more likely than were White Americans to view mental illness as having social causes, they wanted to resolve the problems on their own, possibly with help from family and friends (Narikiyo & Kameoka, 1992).
One response to the need for a cultural understanding of coping is our development of the Cross-Cultural Coping Scale (CCCS). In designing the CCCS, we have incorporated methodological innovations by (a) conceptualizing and assessing coping along the dimensions of individualism and collectivism, (b) differentiating coping strategies within these two dimensions, (c) adopting scenario-based assessment, and (d) proposing a measure of coping for respondents ranging in age from adolescents to young adults and from diverse Asian groups. In this article, we detail the development of the CCCS in three studies and a pilot study.
STUDY 1: DEVELOPMENT OF THE CCCS AND EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS (EFA)
Immigrant children and adolescents are the fastest growing segment of North America's child population (Zhou, 1997). Yet they remain one of the least studied populations (Aronowitz, 1992). In 2001, 34% of the entire Chinese Canadian population, which consisted predominantly of immigrants, were children and adolescents under the age of 24 years (Statistics Canada, 2001). By examining coping patterns of Chinese Canadian adolescents, we hoped to develop the CCCS, while also trying to fill in the gap in research on Asian immigrant youth. We also expected the large population of Chinese youth to be diversely acculturated (B. C. H. Kuo & Roysircar, 2004).
Coping and Acculturation
Acculturation has been found to be a critical variable in differentiating immigrants (Sodowsky, Lai, & Plake, 1991) and their patterns of coping (Frey & Roysircar, 2006; Mena, Padilla, & Maldonado, 1987). Thus, acculturation appeared to be a relevant construct for testing the criterion validity of the CCCS. In Canada and the United States, there exists a dominant culture with a set of national values, behaviors, and social practices that foreign-born individuals are expected to adopt (Roysircar, 2004b). Enforced assimilation into the dominant culture increases stress for the foreign-born or children of immigrants whose values and behaviors observed at home are different from those of the host society (Roysircar-Sodowsky & Frey, 2003). Evidence has pointed to acculturation differences between generations and immigrant statuses (Sodowsky et al., 1991). Thus, newly arrived immigrants and international students can be expected to have lower acculturation scores than will those who were born in Canada or the United States (B. C. H. Kuo & Roysircar, 2004; Sodowsky & Plake, 1992).
Development of the CCCS Items
To assess coping as a cultural construct, we first generated the items for the CCCS through a review of the literature on general coping, cross-cultural coping, and ethnic minority coping (Hobfoll, 1998). Accordingly, we reviewed frequently used coping measures, including the Ways of Coping Checklist (Folkman & Lazarus, 1985) and the Adolescent Coping Scale (Frydenberg & Lewis, 1993), to identify items that focused on the personal thoughts and feelings of the person who is coping with a situation. We developed items suggesting collectivistic coping by reviewing cross-cultural studies (e.g., Mena et al., 1987; Shek & Cheung, 1990) and the literature on Asian values (e.g., Kim, Atkinson, & Yang, 1999; Sodowsky, Kwan, & Pannu, 1995).
We developed an initial pool of 55 items (30 individualistic and 25 collectivistic items). Next, the first and second authors judged the content validity of the items independently, based on their counseling practice with Asian immigrants and internationals, research on Asians in the United States, and their lives within Asian communities in Canada and the United States. Then, the initial items were submitted to a measurement expert and an anthropologist for peer feedback. A pilot study was conducted with 7 Chinese Americans between the ages of 11 and 15 years who were students in a Chinese language school in a midwestern U.S. city. They answered the initial coping items. Then, in a focus group, they discussed the items' face validity and readability. On the basis of the focus group feedback, expert consultation, and the authors' assessment and research experience, a total of 29 items were retained for the initial CCCS. We reduced the CCCS items by more than 50% to eliminate ambiguities, promote the measure's readability for respondents whose first language is not English, and develop a brief measure. (It seemed sensible to develop a brief measure so that respondents would remember a presented scenario.)
There were 10 items depicting individualistic responses: (a) direct action, (b) persistence, (c) planning, (d) positive thinking, (e) recreation activities, (f) acceptance, (g) distractions, (h) disengagement, (i) thought blocking, and (j) wishful thinking. There were 19 items depicting collectivistic responses such as (a) group-referenced strategies, (b) interpersonal resources, and (c) values-based responses. Values-based responses included conformity to norms, family honor (e.g., filial piety), interdependence, social harmony (e.g., interpersonal conflict reduction), respect for hierarchy, emotional control, humility, and substitution of negative thoughts with concrete action.
Scenario-Based Coping Assessment
The use of hypothetical scenarios for Asian respondents has been shown to be more useful than the ranking and rating of attitudinal scales because scenario-based assessment minimizes effects of cultural and linguistic differences (Peng, Nisbett, & Wong, 1997). Scenarios illustrating values are superior to general inquiries about a person's values and attitudes (Liem, Lim, & Liem, 2000), and they increase the uniformity of the stimuli to which participants respond (Schwarzer & Schwarzer, 1996). The CCCS assesses coping by presenting specific, stress-evoking scenarios and asking respondents how they would cope in those situations. No coping study that we know of has adopted such an approach in measuring coping in Asians.
CCCS Scenarios
Two scenarios exemplified acculturative stress situations that Asian youth commonly experience (Sodowsky et al., 1995; Sodowsky & Lai, 1997). The first scenario depicted an intergenerational conflict with parents over dating (see Lee, 1997), and the second scenario portrayed being a target of racial comments (Ying, Lee, & Tsai, 2000). The scenarios were as follows.
Intergenerational conflict (IC). You and your parents have an argument over dating. You want to go out on a date with someone you really like, but your parents do not approve dating. They hold more traditional Chinese values and think that you are too young to date. You are frustrated because your Caucasian Canadian friends are allowed to date by their parents. You believe that it is normal for teenagers to date. If this happens to you, how likely would you [be to] use the following methods to deal with this situation? Racial tension (RT). Lately in school, you have been hearing some negative remarks about Chinese people that are made by some Caucasian Canadian students. Caucasian students have been poking fun at Chinese students and making stereotypical and insulting comments about what Chinese people are like and what they do. These racist...
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