The relationships among acculturation, coping, and stress in Puerto Rican and Korean college students

The major purpose of the present study was to compare college students of Anglo, Korean, and Puerto Rican cultural backgrounds with respect to perceptions of the stressors they experience and the characteristic coping strategies they use to deal with these stressors. A further purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between acculturation and choice of coping strategies among Korean and Puerto Rican students. The subjects for this study were 230 college students (76 Koreans, 76 Puerto Ricans, and 78 Anglos) at a private New England university and a public university in New York City. Results of analyses of variance indicated that Puerto Rican and Anglo students reported significantly more serious academic stressors than the Korean students. Puerto Rican students reported significantly more serious personal stressors than Anglos (but not Koreans). Multivariate analyses of variance revealed that Anglo students tended to use direct positive action to cope with stressors, Koreans were more likely to indicate that they didn\u27t worry about stressors, and Puerto Rican students were most likely to report using tension-reducing strategies (food, drugs, exercise). Results of analyses of variance indicated that Korean students suffered the highest level of experienced stress of any group. Zero-order correlations revealed that acculturation was related negatively to experienced stress among Puerto Ricans, but not among Koreans. The present study was limited with respect to generalizability due to the fact that the sample represents only two distinct cultural groups who reside in one geographic region. The study involves self-report data and has the limitations of such data, including the possibility of social desirability response set bias