The Measure of Hierarchy of the Concept Stress and Copings in freshmen of Different Cultures

Abstract

The turbulent state of modern society puts forward high demands on a person's ability to constructively resolve stressful situations. The choice and implementation of coping strategies depends on the measure of hierarchy of the Stress concept. The measure of the hierarchy of the Stress concept determines the ability of the subject to highlight the essence of the problem, taking into account significant relationships between the signs of a stressful situation. The results discussed, were an analysis with a ratio to the hierarchial measurement of the concept of Stress and coping strategies among students of different ethno-cultural groups. The verbal hierarchy of the Stress concept was evaluated by the modified version of the “Problem Formulation technique” (Kholodnaya, 2019); the nonverbal hierarchy of the Stress was assessed by pictographic technique. The criteria for assessing the verbal and nonverbal hierarchy of the Stress concept are defined. Coping strategies were measured by the Adolescent Coping Scale (Frydenberg, Lewis, 1993). The sample is represented by 712 first-year students of large universities aged fron 19.2 ± 2.0 years old from five collectivistic cultures. It was revealed that students display in visual images mainly external and internal manifestations of a stressful state, but verbalize stressful situations through partial concrete signs. It is shown that the higher is the measure of hierarchy of the Stress concept, the greater is the demand for subjective copings and the less is recourse to non-subjective ones (GLM, p = 0.000). The data obtained show that the verbal hierarchy of the concept Stress is significantly associated with the student's ethno-cultural affiliation: Russian students are characterized by a high verbal hierarchy of the Stress concept; Turkish and Chinese students are of average verbal hierarchy, students from Armenia and Tatarstan are of low verbal hierarchy. Significant data in favor of the conjugation of the non-verbal hierarchy of the Stress concept with the student's ethnocultural affiliation was not found. The development of the subject's ability to integrate diverse information about a stressful situation into a holistic image provides an increase in the constructiveness of coping behavior.