Сulture, Stress and Coping: Socio-Cultural Context Influence on Coping Types among Russians

The paper presents a new psychometric adaptation of the cross-cultural coping scale for the Russian-speaking sample (Cross-Cultural Coping Scale by B. Kuo et al., 2006, Canada: Kuo, Roysircar, Newby-Clark, 2006) and a research made with its help, answering the questions: Do Russians cope with stress? What are socio-cultural contexts of coping in the time of cultural transition? The tool explores the influence of the socio-cultural context on the respondents’ choice between three types of coping. The influence of cultural context on coping and its intensity has been confirmed in this study. The situational context has the greatest impact on the choice of collective coping among Russian respondents. In general Russians evaluate more acute and important stress in the situations Health/Illness than in Job/Career context. There are obvious relations between the choice of avoidance coping and the respondents’ age in the career scenario. In both contexts people use engagement coping (self activity) more actively and are less inclined to avoid difficulties. The choice of coping type is affected by a group of factors: self-concept traits (independent or interdependent selves), stress level, type of values, life satisfaction