Stress among Chinese, Korean-Chinese and Korean High School Students: A Transcultural Study

Park, Yong Chon; Kim, Kwang Iel; Fang, Jin Nu; Ko, Bok Ja; Kim, Dae Ho

Abstract

In this transcultural comparison, we examined areas of stress, coping strategies and psychosomatic symptoms resulting from such strategies in Chinese, Korean-Chinese and Korean high school students. A total of 1,042 second-year high school students participated in this study: 213 Chinese from Yanbien, China: 368 Korean-Chinese from Yanbien, China ; and 466 Koreans from Seoul, Korea. We administered the Stress Questionnaire Form for High school Students(Won and Lee 995), the Ways of Coping-Revised(Lazarus and Folkman 1984) and the Physical Symptom Scale of Stress(Allen and Hyde 1980) to investigate areas of stress, coping strategies and psychosomatic symptoms, respectively. The findings were understood and interpreted from focus group discussions. Although there were no differences in total stress scores among the three groups, there were significant differences in areas of stress. Chinese students manifested the highest stress scores in peer relation, family problem, heterosexual problem, the future-employment, and religious problem. Koreans scored the highest in academic performance, school life, extracurricular activity, psychological-personality problem, value system, and the future-employment. The Korean-Chinese students scored the highest in extracurricular activity, family-economic problem. In terms of collectivism versus individualism, Chinese students' stress was related more toward the collective situation, whereas the Korean students faced increased stress regarding the individual situation. In coping strategies, the Chinese were characterized by active coping, Koreans by passive coping and the Korean-Chinese by a mixture of the two. Koreans had the highest scores in psychosomatic symptoms, suggesting unfavorable coping strategies. The Korean-Chinese students seemed to lie intermediate between Koreans and Chinese in all three study areas, implying their cultural pluralism.