Collectivism and coping: Current theories, evidence, and measurements of collective coping

Abstract

A burgeoning body of cultural coping research has begun to identify the prevalence and the functional importance of collective coping behaviors among culturally diverse populations in North America and internationally. These emerging findings are highly significant as they evidence culture's impacts on the stress-coping process via collectivistic values and orientation. They provide a critical counterpoint to the prevailing Western, individualistic stress and coping paradigm. However, current research and understanding about collective coping appear to be piecemeal and not well integrated. To address this issue, this review attempts to comprehensively survey, summarize, and evaluate existing research related to collective coping and its implications for coping research with culturally diverse populations from multiple domains. Specifically, this paper reviews relevant research and knowledge on collective coping in terms of: (a) operational definitions; (b) theories; (c) empirical evidence based on studies of specific cultural groups and broad cultural values/dimensions; (d) measurements; and (e) implications for future cultural coping research. Overall, collective coping behaviors are conceived as a product of the communal/relational norms and values of a cultural group across studies. They also encompass a wide array of stress responses ranging from value-driven to interpersonally based to culturally conditioned emotional/cognitive to religion- and spirituality-grounded coping strategies. In addition, this review highlights: (a) the relevance and the potential of cultural coping theories to guide future collective coping research; (b) growing evidence for the prominence of collective coping behaviors particularly among Asian nationals, Asian Americans/Canadians and African Americans/Canadians; (c) preference for collective coping behaviors as a function of collectivism and interdependent cultural value and orientation; and (d) six cultural coping scales. This study brings to light the present theoretical and methodological contributions as well as limitations of this body of literature and the implications it holds for future coping research.

The influence of social contextual conditions and basic psychological need fulfillment on self-management and emotional distress among urban African American adults with type-2 diabetes mellitus : a mixed methods study.

“…This finding aligns with the SDT assumption that the means by which basic needs are fulfilled vary between populations, and is influenced by factors such as culture . Participants in the current study exhibited the collectivistic characteristic of interdependence, emphasizing the importance of helping and relying upon others (Kuo, 2012). In this respect, participants' desire for peer support groups supports previous research findings, where it has been suggested that individuals with collectivistic cultural backgrounds have a greater reliance on others for emotional support than individuals with individualistic cultural backgrounds Ryan, et a1.…”

Factors Associated with Willingness to Participate in Biospecimen Research Among Chinese Americans

“…The measures used in this study had a moderate reliability similar to those used in other studies. [20][21][22][24][25][26][27][28]32,33 Some measures, such as collectivism/individualism, were very abstract. These measures may perform better if modified or tailored to be more specific to biospecimen research.…”

“…50,51,[54][55][56][57] Findings from the present study suggest that Chinese Americans with higher collectivism views were more willing to participate in biospecimen research compared with those with less collectivism views, although this did not remain significant in multivariate analyses. Collectivists value actions with benefits to society and social life [23][24][25][26][27][28] and so support medical research by being willing to donate blood. Collectivist views may reflect Chinese traditional values and may be a promising health communications strategy to increase Chinese Americans' participation in biospecimen research.…”

“…13,20 Compared to European and American values of individualism, Asian Americans more often believe in considering and valuing the group above oneself or individual needs. 24,28 Our hypothesis was that those with collectivist beliefs would be more willing to participate in biospecimen research than those with individualist beliefs. The horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism scale 29 was adapted by Singelis 30 and used in the current study.…”

Coping With Uprooting Stress During Domestic Educational Migration in China

“…In light of the growing trend of internal and international migration, we examined an under-researched group of educational migrants and answered the call for coping research outside of a Western context (Kuo, 2013).…”