Coping Mechanisms

Gender and Coping Mechanisms

Across age-groups, it has been noted that men tend to use more problem-focused coping mechanisms, whereas women tend to use more emotion-focused mechanisms. Situational contexts as well as socialization have been postulated to play a role in this finding. Men may have more control over their stressors, a situation in which problem-focused coping is more appropriate and advantageous. If women have less or no control over their stressors, emotion-focused coping is more appropriate and may be just as beneficial. Research on the use of support, both instrumentally and emotionally, has shown that men tend to use more instrumental support, whereas women tend to use more emotional support. In most cultural contexts, socialization teaches women to rely on others, especially for emotional support. On the other hand, men are taught to be independent, but if support is necessary, they should do so for informational purposes rather than for emotional ones.

Ethnicity/Race and Coping Mechanisms

Although the East–West distinction has been made in the literature and cross-cultural comparisons have included people from different countries, the majority of the research on coping mechanisms has been done in the United States and has used primarily European American or Caucasian participants. Furthermore, when culture is examined as a variable of interest, Caucasian comparison groups have been consistently used to show relative differences in coping between ethnic or racial groups. This weakness of the current literature has been noted many times in reviews; however, few studies have addressed it directly. The following sections highlight the findings of previous researchers with regard to specific ethnic and racial groups. But keep in mind, however, that most of these findings are relative and limited to the scope of the research from which they were retrieved. That is, many (if not most) of the studies examining coping mechanisms in ethnically diverse samples chose to include more negative variables, such as depression, anxiety, alcohol and substance use, and avoidance coping strategies.

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