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

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.