A cross-cultural study of the coping strategies of Turkish and English adults

This project examined the similarities and differences of the coping process of English and Turkish adults. It focused on stress in close relationships and how individuals from these two cultures coped with it. A mixed method approach with a sequential mixed design consisting of an initial qualitative study followed by a quantitative study was applied. The qualitative study was exploratory and investigated the coping process of 10 English adults, 10 Turkish adults living in Turkey and 10 Turkish adults living in the UK through semi structured interviews. Turkish adults living in the UK were included in the study to investigate the effect of acculturation on the coping strategies of Turkish people. A grounded theory analysis was used which provided detailed information on the coping process of these groups. The results suggested that the Turkish participants used the coping strategies self expression, seeking social support, avoidance and problem solving more than the English participants. It was also found that as Turkish participants lived in UK for a while they used these coping strategies less frequently than the Turkish participants living in Turkey. Also as a result of the grounded theory analysis a model of coping patterns emerged which depicted the tendential order of successive coping strategies employed by the participants