Stress, coping and psychological illness: A cross-cultural study.

Abstract

This cross-cultural research study aimed to explore the relationship of stress and coping with psychological illness or symptoms among university students in Canada and India. The predictor variables were stress (hassles and life experience), 8 ways of coping (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988), and selected personal-social variables, namely, locus of control, self-esteem, and social support. The criterion variables were 9 psychological symptoms of the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI;Derogatis & Spencer, 1982). The results revealed that the Indian students reported more psychological symptoms compared to the Canadian students. Stepwise multiple-regression analyses also revealed considerable differences between the 2 samples with respect to the contribution of predictor variables in accounting for variance in the BSI scales.

The Psychological Well-Being and Sociocultural Adaptation of Short-Term International Students in Ireland

“…The questionnaire has 53 items that ask participants to describe feelings or thoughts. The reliability, validity, and utility of the BSI have been tested extensively across cultures (Broday & Mason, 1991;Cochran & Hale, 1985;Sinha & Watson, 2007). Cronbach's alpha the BSI in the current study was .96 at time 2.…”

Stress Coping Strategies in Indian Military Pilots-Preliminary Observations

“…In a study by Sinha and Watson (2007), which compared Canadian university students with Indian students, a similar conclusion was drawn. They found that unlike Indians, the use of escape-avoidance coping predicted many psychological symptoms for Canadians.…”

“…There are two main reasons why this could be so. First, studies suggest differences between Americans and Asians in stress coping (Bjorck, Cuthbertson, Thurman, & Lee, 2001;Sinha & Watson, 2007). Second, previous research from this laboratory indicates the possibility of cultural variations in Indian military pilots, on characteristics such as achievement, affiliation, and locus of control (Joseph & Ganesh, 2006;Joseph & Kochhar, 2011).…”

Improving Emotional Intelligence (EI) using Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques

“…There are many similarities between NLP and 'The Ways of Coping Questionnaire' (WCQ: Folkman & Lazarus, 1988; recently used by Sinha & Watson, 2007). The WCQ yields eight scores, namely, confronting coping (aggressively trying to change the stressful situation), distancing, self-controlling, seeking social support, accepting responsibility, escape-avoidance, problem-solving and positive reappraisal.…”