Coping strategies relate to dispositional characteristics A multicultural study

AIM The aim of this present study was the investigation of the correlation among coping strategies, deadline with stress with variable personality as alexithymia, sence of coherence and cynical distrust scale, on the two samples of Greek and American university students. MATERIAL–METHOD The Greek sample consisted of 352 college students, mean age 21.7, 70% female and the American sample of 116 college students, mean age 20.9, 75% female Instruments used included standardized questionnaires to measure coping strategies (COPE), alexithymia (TAS-20), sense of coherence (SOC-13), and the cynical distrust scale. RESULTS Results indicate that American students had higher scores of comprehensibility (SOC-13), manageability (SOC-13), and external oriented thinking (TAS-20). Principal-components analysis with a varimax rotation was used to derive factors from the Coping Orientation to Problems (COPE) Questionnaire. Several different factor extractions were attempted, and a three-factor solution was chosen for its parsimony and interpretability: (a) active coping strategies, (b) acceptance coping strategies, and (c) neurotic coping strategies. Neurotic coping strategies were negatively related to sense of coherence and positively related to difficulty identifying feelings, and difficulty describing feelings. CONCLUSIONS Results suggest that coping strategies relate to dispositional characteristics such as alexithymia, sense of coherence, and the cynical distrust scale in a multicultural level.