This study investigated how N ¼ 5,126 adolescents (mean age of 15 years) from 18 countries perceive and cope with future-and schoolrelated stress. The adolescents completed the Problem Questionnaire (PQ), which assesses stress, and the Coping Across Situations Questionnaire (CASQ), which assesses three coping styles (reflection/support-seeking, emotional outlet, and withdrawal/denial). Across countries, adolescents reported considerably higher levels of future-related stress than school-related stress. The adolescents actively coped with stressors in both domains and seldom relied on emotional outlet or withdrawal/denial. A clustering of the countries according to socioeconomic criteria and geographical proximity demonstrated that adolescents from the continental group of countries showed low stress and high coping. Adolescents in the east/Asia group showed medium stress and low coping and those in the south group showed high stress and low coping. Developmental context was more strongly associated with stress perception and coping, style than age or gender, a finding relevant for prevention approaches aiming to endorse positive orientation to the future and improve coping competence.

The present study focuses on romantic stress and coping styles in the context of identity and future-related stressors in 8,654 adolescents with a mean age of M = 15.3; SD = 1.84. The adolescents from 17 countries were grouped into seven regions, i.e., Mid-Europe, Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, South Africa, South America, and the Middle East. Future-related stressors were perceived as being more stressful than romantic stressors by all adolescents, irrespective of the region in which they lived. Identity-related stressors were of greater concern to adolescents from South Africa, South America, and the Middle East. Romantic stress was much higher in adolescents from Mid-Europe and Southern Europe compared to adolescents from other regions. Roughly 80% of all adolescents employed adaptive coping styles in that they negotiated with the romantic partner, sought support from friends and others, and shared an overall positive outlook. Adolescents from Mid-, Northern, and Eastern Europe were the most active in negotiating and support-seeking when dealing with romantic stressors.

The impact of identity-related risk factors on psychopathology was analyzed in 2,113 emerging adults ( M = 22.0 years; 66% female) from France, Germany, Turkey, Greece, Peru, Pakistan, and Poland. Identity stress, coping with identity stress, maternal parenting (support, psychological control, and anxious rearing), and psychopathology (internalizing, externalizing, and total symptomatology) were assessed. After partialing out the influence of stress, coping, and perceived maternal behavior, country did no longer exert a significant effect on symptom scores. The effect for gender remained, as did an interaction between country and gender. Rather unexpected, on average, males reported higher internalizing symptomatology scores than females. Potential causes for the higher scores of males are therefore discussed. Partialing out covariates resulted in a clearer picture of country-specific and gender-dependent effects on psychopathology, which is helpful in designing interventions.

This study investigated how 2000 adolescents from middle‐class families in six countries perceived and coped with parent‐related and peer‐related stress. Adolescents from Costa Rica, Korea, and Turkey perceived parent‐related stress to be greater than peer‐related stress, whereas stress levels in both relationship types were similar in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Pakistan. Female adolescents predominantly reported higher levels of peer‐related stress than male adolescents. Adolescents in all countries used negotiating and support‐seeking to cope with relationship stress more often than emotional outlet or withdrawal. Withdrawal occurred more often to deal with parent‐related than with peer‐related stress. Results suggest that adolescents across countries competently coped with relationship stress. However, patterns of what adolescents perceived as stressful and how they coped varied between countries.

This study analyzed the unique effects of gender and culture on psychopathology in adolescents from seven countries after controlling for factors which might have contributed to variations in psychopathology. In a sample 2259 adolescents (M = 15 years; 54% female) from France, Germany, Turkey, Greece, Peru, Pakistan, and Poland identity stress, coping with identity stress, maternal parenting (support, psychological control, anxious rearing) and psychopathology (internalizing, externalizing and total symptomatology) were assessed. Due to variations in stress perception, coping style and maternal behavior, these covariates were partialed out before the psychopathology scores were subjected to analyses of variance with gender and country as factors. These analyses leveled out the main effect of country and revealed country-specific gender effects. In four countries, males reported higher internalizing and total symptomatology than females. Partialing out the covariates resulted in a clearer picture of culture-specific and genderdependent effects on psychopathology, which is helpful in designing interventions.Adolescence is regarded as a window of vulnerability for developing psychopathology, due to the many changes with which adolescents have to cope. Of central concern are identity issues, as identity formation is a core developmental challenge for adolescents (Erikson, 1968). Of note, the construct of identity has been integrated as a central diagnostic criterion for personality disorders in the DSM-5, and identity conflicts contribute to many adolescence-typical disorders such as eating disorders, self-harming behavior or depression (OPD-CA-2 Task Force, 2017). Rapid social and technological changes, the increasing plurality of norms and values, and a growing structural uncertainty at the societal level have made identity formation more difficult for adolescents across the world (Kroger & Marcia, 2011). Further, there is some indication that in some Western countries dysfunctional parenting adds to the difficulty in establishing a separate identity, thereby contributing to an increased symptom level of the adolescent (Barber, 2002;Lemoyne & Buchanan, 2011).Given the increasing diversity in Western countries as well as the increasing globalization, it seems important to analyze what