Don’t Stress, Easier Said Than Done: Relationship Between Perceived Stress, Coping Styles, and Self-Leadership

Undergraduate stress has become a major health concern that could contribute to the manifestation of various psychological disorders. As a result, research interested in approach coping skills to mitigate stress is important to improving undergraduates’ mental health. The present study explored the relationship between perceived stress, coping styles, and self-leadership using questionnaires to measure these concepts. There were three hypotheses that guided this study. The first hypothesis stated that participants who used more approach coping would experience less perceived stress. The second hypothesis stated that participants who utilized more self-leadership would experience less perceived stress. The third hypothesis stated that participants who used more behavior-focused strategies, a dimension of self-leadership, would experience less perceived stress. Data were from 188 male and female undergraduates from a mid-sized university were collected and examined for support of the hypotheses. The correlation results for the men indicated that approach coping was correlated with a decrease in perceived stress, however self-leadership and behavior-focused strategies were not found to relate to a reduction in perceived stress. However, the correlation results for the women supported the hypotheses that approach coping, self-leadership, and behavior-focused strategies were related to a reduction in perceived stress. These findings from the present study lay a foundation for future research to investigate the efficacy of different dimensions of self-leadership at reducing perceived stress as well as the gender differences in the use of self-leadership