COPING STRATEGIES AS A FUNCTION OF GENDER AND EDUCATIONAL LEVEL

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Running Head: COPING STRATEGIES AS A FUNCTION OF GENDER AND EDUCATIONAL LEVEL

Coping Strategies as a Function of Gender and Educational Level of Public and Private University Students

A project is submitted to the Department of Psychology, University of Dhaka, in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology.

Submitted By Md. Humayun Kabir Exam Roll: 1701 Registration no HA- 1605 Session: 2007-2008 Department of psychology University of Dhaka

Project supervisor

Dr. Mahfuza Khanam Professor Department of Psychology University of Dhaka

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Abstract
This study investigated the differences in the coping strategies adopted by male and female first year and fourth year students of public and private university. A total number of 120 students (60 male and 60 female), where 60 from public university and 60 from private university, age ranging from 17 to 23 years were selected as sample. Non-probability sampling technique and purposive field survey were used for collecting data. The Bangla version of the “Coping Scale” (Huque, 2004) was used for assessing coping strategies. Results revealed significant differences between males and females in terms of engagement in both adaptive and non-adaptive coping strategies. In addition, educational level and university type had no effect on adaptive coping but had significant effect on non-adaptive coping strategies.

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Introduction
Many of us break down if they going get tough enough. We face many stresses, ranging from mild to intense. Although we all talk about stress, it often isn't clear what stress is really about. Many people consider stress to be something that happens to them, an event such as an injury or a promotion. Others think that stress is what happens to our body; mind and behavior in response to an event; e.g. heart pounding, anxiety, or nail biting. While stress does involve events and our response to them, these are not the most important factors. Our thoughts about the situations in which we find ourselves are the critical factor. However, the transition from post 16 years to higher education for many students is a stressful experience as they struggle to cope with an array of changing situations including: movement away from home, change of peer group and the establishment of new friendships. Whilst for most this transition occurs naturally with limited interruptions to learning, for others, the transition is more stressful requiring the adoption of strategies specifically aimed towards coping with the changing situation.

Coping with stress
Stress is a part of life- and not necessarily a completely bad part; for example, without stress, we might not be sufficiently motivated to purse the activities we need to accomplish a task. However, it is also clear that too much stress can take its toll on both physical and psychological health .How do people deal with stress? Is there a way to reduce its negative effects? The efforts to control, reduce, or learn to tolerate the threats that leads to stress are known as coping. But when stressor seriously threatens a person’s feelings of adequacy, a defense-oriented response leads to prevail: a) psychological damage repair mechanism such as, crying, repetitive talking and mounding, b) the second consists of the so called ego or selfdefense mechanism. According to Lazarus and his colleagues, coping can serve two main

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functions (Cohen and Lazarus, 1979; Lazarus and Launier, 1978). It can alter the problems causing the stress or it can regulate the emotional response to the problem. Everyone sees situations differently and has different coping skills. For this reason, no two people will respond exactly the same way to a given situation. Some situations in life are stress-provoking, but it is our thoughts that determine whether they are a problem to us. If we always respond in a negative way our health and happiness may suffer. By understanding ourselves and our reactions to stress-provoking situations, we can learn to handle stress more effectively.

What Is Coping?
Coping represents an individual’s cognitive, affective and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands (Crocker et al., 1998; Lazarus, 1999). Specifically, it can be defined as the ‘conscious, rational way of dealing with the anxieties of life’ (Reber, 1985) and is reflected in the self-protection strategies adopted by the individual (Kashden et al., 2006). Effective application of such strategies allows the individual to ‘resolve problems, relieve emotional distress, and stay on track towards achieving their goals’ (Brown, Westbrook, & Challagalla, 2005).Ineffective application may result in ‘subtle avoidance or suppressed behavior’ (Kashdenet al., 2006). Coping is thus expending conscious effort to solve personal and interpersonal problems, and seeking to master, minimize or tolerate stress or conflict. Unconscious or non-conscious strategies (e.g., defense mechanisms) are generally excluded. The term coping generally refers to adaptive or constructive coping strategies, i.e., the strategies reduce stress levels. However, some coping strategies can be considered non-adaptive, i.e., stress levels increase. Non-adaptive coping can thus be described as non-coping. Furthermore, the term coping generally refers to reactive coping, i.e., the coping response follows the stressor. This contrasts with proactive coping, in which a coping response aims to head off a future stressor.

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Coping responses are partly controlled by personality (habitual traits), but also partly by the social context, particularly depend on the nature of the stressful environment. Psychological coping mechanisms are commonly termed coping strategies or coping skills.

Types of coping strategies
Most of the models of coping identify two distinct categories based on the intention and function of coping efforts: problem focused and emotion focused (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). Whereas Weiten & Lloyd (2008) has provided a useful summary of three broad types of coping strategies: problem-focused (adaptive behavioral), emotion-focused (non-adaptive) and appraisal-focused (adaptive cognitive). Problem-focused coping refers to cognitive and behavioral efforts used to change the problem, and includes such strategies as problem solving, planning and effort (Holt et al., 2005); that means problem-focused strategies actively engage the stressor to overcome it (Lazarus, 1993). The focus is towards the successful completion of the given task. Therefore they are considered to be more adaptive particularly in situations where the stressor is changeable. Emotion-focused, on the other hand, coping involves strategies that help control emotional arousal and distress that are caused by the stressor without addressing the problem (Crocker et al., 1998), and includes avoidance, detachment and suppression (Kashden et al., 2006). Thus, emotion-focused strategies are efforts directed at minimizing the negative effects of the stressor (Lazarus, 1993; Harari & Legge, 2001). They insulate the individual by focusing on changing thoughts and feelings about one’s situation. Emotion-focused coping strategies are used where the stressor is perceived as extremely threatening and uncontrollable. Generally, emotion-focused coping strategies and problem focused coping strategies are often used in combinations (Bird, & Melville, 1994).

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Finally, the appraisal-focused strategies occur when the person modifies the way they think, for example: employing denial or distancing oneself from the problem. People may alter the way they think about a problem by altering their goals and values such as by seeing the humor in a situation: "some have suggested that humor may play a greater role as a stress moderator among women than men". Typically, people use a mixture of all three types of coping strategies, and coping skills will usually change over time. All these methods can prove useful, but some claim that those using problem-focused coping strategies will adjust better to life. Problem-focused coping mechanisms may allow an individual greater perceived control over their problem, whereas emotion-focused coping may sometimes lead to a reduction in perceived control (nonadaptive coping). The ability of the individual to adopt appropriate coping strategies impacts upon their overall performance and consequently their level of attainment (Brown, Westbrook, & Challagalla, 2005).

Technique of coping
All coping strategies further can be divided under two type technique of coping: Adaptive or constructive coping and Maladaptive or Non-adaptive coping. Each strategy of coping can belonging under any one of these two categories.

Adaptive or Constructive Coping
One Adaptive coping strategy, "anticipating a problem is known as proactive coping; in which a coping response aims to head off a future stressor" (Brannon, Linda and Feist, 2009). Anticipation is when one "reduce(s) the stress of some difficult challenge by anticipating what it will be like and preparing for how (one is) going to cope with it" (Skynner & Cleese, 1994). Two others are "social coping, such as seeking support from others; and meaningfocused coping, in which the person concentrates on deriving meaning from the stressful experience" (Brannon, Linda and Feist, 2009).

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Maladaptive or Non-Adaptive Coping
While adaptive coping methods improve functioning, a non-adaptive coping technique will just reduce symptoms while maintaining and strengthening the disorder. Non-adaptive techniques are more effective in the short term rather than long term coping process. Examples of non-adaptive behavior strategies include: dissociation, sensitization, safety behaviors, anxious avoidance, and escape (including self-medication). Further examples of non-adaptive coping strategies include emotional or instrumental support, self-distraction, denial, substance use, self-blame, behavioral disengagement and religion, indulgence in drugs or alcohol. These are non-adaptive strategies as they serve to maintain the disorder. Nonadaptive coping can thus be described as non-coping.

Research findings on coping strategies
Billings and Moos (1981) found that individual with higher educational levels report greater use of problem-focused copping than those with less education, suggest that social experiences of disadvantages people lead to believe they have little control over stress in their life. Studies also indicated that "there were gender differences in the sources of stressors, but gender differences in coping were relatively small after controlling for the source of stressors"(Billings, & Moos, 1981) and more recent work has similarly revealed "small differences between women's and men's coping strategies when studying individuals in similar situations (Brannon et al., 2009). Stone & Neale (1984) found some differences and reported that men appear to use more direct and active coping strategies, while women engaged in more passive coping strategies such as relaxation techniques, religion, social support, and distraction. These results are consistent with the postulation of the socialization theory which contends that men and women approach stressors according to their differential upbringing (Sigmon et al., 1995).

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Further, some researchers whose participants occupied the same social role such as students did not differ in their use of coping strategies (Ptacek, Smith, & Dodge, 1994). Gender differences in the selection of coping strategies have been identified, with males adopting more problem focused strategies and females adopting a more emotion focused approach (Ptacek, Smith, & Dodge, 1994). Studies of gender differences in coping strategies found that men are likely to report using problem-focused strategies and women are more likely to report using emotion-focused strategies in dealing with stressful events, but when they are similar in education and occupation no gender differences are found (Greenglass & Noguchi, 1996). Lawrence, Ashford, & Dent, (2006) in a study found significant differences in coping styles between males and female participants, with males exhibiting greater ability to detach themselves from the emotions of a situation and more inclination to demonstrate emotional inhibition or ‘bottling up’ of emotions. In terms of the coping strategies adopted, males have a tendency to avoid using emotion-focused approaches in contrast to females who predominantly use this approach. Kasayira, Chipandambira, & Hungwe, (2007) found that, when consider gender, coping strategies used by female students were relatively more palliative and compromise positive strategies than male students who used relatively more confrontational positive strategies. When compared coping strategies used by students in different academic years, then found that, fourth year students used more confrontational positive coping strategies than those in the other lower years. First years used relatively more nonspecific coping strategies than remaining other year students. Huque & Islam (2008) found that non-adapting coping strategies are related with gender differences. Female are adopted non-adaptive coping strategies frequently than male where no significant differences had for adopting adapting coping strategies.

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Objectives of the Study
Within the current higher education environment there is a drive towards the development of greater independence and personal reflection requiring students to take ownership of their learning. In order to do so, it is important that they are able to adopt appropriate coping strategies. We know College students basically first year University students are prone to stress due to the transitional nature of university or higher educational life. Again, in our country, number of female students increased day by day and private university also increased in prominent rate. In such context the purposes of the study are: a. To asses and compare the coping strategies of students according to gender. b. To investigate whether coping strategies vary with educational level and type of university

Rationale of the Study
In our daily life, even from family life to professional life, everywhere stress is a common experience. Further we feel more stress in each noble situation. Thus, students are faced several types of stressful events in educational life such as announcement of exam date, preparation of class quiz, expectation of academic performance and so on, but every student not similarly cope with those situation. Appropriately coping with every stressful event enhanced our effectiveness and normal development of our life. Further, first year University students are more prone to stress due to the transitional period. Again, there was a great discrepancy between number of male and female students in our country although this difference is minimizing in present day. Beside of public university, number of private university increased day by day in our country to fulfill the necessity of higher educational institute. But very few investigation are available in the context of coping strategies of students, I have no found any comparative study about coping strategies of public and private university students.

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However, after considering the above context, I wish to prefer my study under the topic “Coping Strategies as a Function of Gender and Educational Level of Public and Private University Students.” So the study will play an important role to understand the copping strategies of male and female students, first year and fourth year students and public and private university students. So it will be helpful for the administration body of university to take decision about effective steps for the student benefits. The finding on coping strategies may helpful to understand the context of academic environment of public and private university. I hope that, results of the study help the pre-graduate students to understand the university environment and also help the and also help the teacher to eliminate the gender differences on coping strategies of female students. This will allow the identification and implementation of support mechanisms where appropriate.

Hypotheses of the Study
In the light of literature of following hypothesis can be formulated:
a. There will be significant differences in coping strategies among the male and female students.

b. Coping strategies will be significantly varied between first year and fourth year students.
c. Coping strategies of public and private university students will be significantly

differ.

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Method
Participants & Setting
Target population of study was all of the students from first year and fourth year of public and private universities which are situated in Dhaka district. From mentioned population only 120 participants were participated in the study (60 male and 60 female students), where 60 from public university and 60 from private university between the age of 17 to 23 years. Among 60 participants of each university, 30 participants from first year (15 male and 15 female students) and 30 participants from fourth year (see the Table 1). Non probability sampling (convenient sampling) procedure was followed during the selection of sample. They all were belonged to different positions and different classes.

Table 1
Sample distribution according to Gender, Educational level and University type. Dhaka University 1st Year Male 15 Female 15 4 st Year Male 15 Female 15 Private University 1 st Year Male 15 Female 15 4st Year Male 15 Female 15

Measuring Instruments
The instruments used for the present study were the following: 1. Coping Scale 2. Personal Information Form (PIF).

Coping Scale
The translated and adapted version of the coping scale (Huque, 2004), originally developed by Folkman & Lazarus (1980) was used to measure coping behavior of the respondents. The reliability of the translated version of the coping scale was reported to be

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highly significant(r=0.86, .05). Obtained results also indicate that non-adaptive coping strategies varied according to all variables; gender (z=-5.469, p