Coping resource availability and level of perceived stress as predictors of life satisfaction in a cohort of Turkish college students - Statistical Data Included

College Student Journal, March, 2002 by Carol Simons, Ferda Aysan, Dennis Thompson, Errol Hamarat, Don Steele

This study investigated the effects of perceived stress and availability of coping resources to predict satisfaction with life among a cohort of college students in Turkey (N=172). Results indicate that both perceived stress and coping resource availability moderately predict level of life satisfaction. It was further found that the combination of coping resource availability and perceived stress is a better predictor of life satisfaction than either variable is when considered separately. Results also indicate significant correlations between life satisfaction with perceived economic well being, social support, and stress monitoring.

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As we begin a new century, college students worldwide are faced with increasing numbers of stressors. For example, technology has exponentially increased the amount of knowledge available. Sorting through, evaluating, and assimilating vast amounts of knowledge is particularly challenging to today's college students. Prior to the widespread use of computers, resources of information were limited, making the college students' job considerably less complex and arguably less stressful. Additionally, young adulthood is a time of flux; a time when people are called upon to make life affecting decisions, such as choosing a career, establishing a household, and choosing a life-partner.

Establishing the correlates of life satisfaction among college students is essential to inform efforts to improve quality of life for these young adults. Some constructs hypothesized to correlate with life satisfaction include social interaction (Gibson, 1986), personality (Costa, McCrae, & Norris, 1981; Heady & Wearing, 1989; McCrae & Costa, 1991), income and social class (George, 1990), health (Willits & Crider, 1988), religion (Koenig, Kvale, & Ferrell, 1988), and coping resources and perceived stress (Hamarat et al., 2001).

The impact of stress on life satisfaction has been substantiated by a number of researchers (e.g. Brown, 1988; Chang, 1998; Kent, Gorenflo, Daniel, & Forney, 1993; and Nowack, 1991). Chang's (1998) research, for example, indicates that the amount of perceived stress among college students correlates with levels of depression and life satisfaction. Chang's findings indicate that the more stress students experience, the lower their levels of life satisfaction. Chang's research further found that the more optimistic the student, the greater the satisfaction with life.

One might question the reason for students' differing levels of optimism. Perhaps optimism is affected by a student's perception of his level of stress. Hamarat et al.'s (2001) findings indicate that perceived stress levels predict life satisfaction among American college students. Interestingly, Hamarat et al. found that for middle-aged and older adults, combining a measure of perceived stress with a measure of coping resource effectiveness provided a better predictor of life satisfaction than did perceived stress alone. For young adults in Hamarat et al.'s study, however, perceived stress alone was the best predictor of satisfaction with life.

While investigations of life satisfaction among college students have been conducted in other cultures (e.g., Lange & Byrd, 1998), previous studies have not tested the ability of coping resource effectiveness and perceived stress to predict college students' subjective well being, or satisfaction with life as did Hamarat, et al. (2001) in the United States.

Using the same measures as Hamarat et al. (2001), the present investigation examined the relationships among perceived stress, coping resource availability, and satisfaction with life in young adults. Hamarat et al. assessed this relationship in North American participants, across three age groups, one of which was college students. The focus of this research, however, is on coping, stress, and life satisfaction among Turkish college students. Both separate and joint effects of perceived stress and coping resource availability upon life satisfaction were examined. It was hypothesized that the combination of coping resource availability and perceived stress would be better predictors of satisfaction with life than either variable would be alone.

The following research questions are addressed:

1. How well do coping resource availability and perceived stress predict satisfaction with life for Turkish college students?

2. Are the combined effects of perceived stress and coping resource availability better predictors of life satisfaction than perceived stress or coping resources are when considered separately?

The present study also examined the effects of a number of demographic variables upon life satisfaction. Differences along 12 coping dimensions were also investigated.

Method

Participants

The sample consists of 172 participants ranging in age from 19 to 35 (M age =21.24, SD=2.01). All participants were recruited from among students enrolled in a university in Izmir, Turkey. Demographic data are presented in Table 1.

Measures

A global measure of perceived stress, The Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983) measures the degree to which one's life situations and circumstances are perceived as stressful. This measure calls for the individual to self-appraise level of stress, so the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) accounts for individual differences in the assessment of environmental demands. The PSS is a 14-item instrument which asks participants to respond to a series of statements designed to evaluate the degree of stress experienced. Items include such statements as: In the last month, how often have you felt difficulties were piling up so high that you could not overcome them? This appraisal based measure of stress was selected because current stress assessment researchers tend to favor such measures over checklist assessments. The PSS is an empirically established appraisal based index (Cohen, Kessler, & Gordon, 1995),very few of which measure global stress experience. The PSS has strong psychometrics with coefficient alpha reliabilities ranging between .84 and .86. The measure correlates with physical and depressive symptomology measures between .52 and .70, and .65 and .76, respectively.