A Longitudinal Study on International Students' Stress, Problem Focused Coping and Cross-Cultural Adaptation in China

Academic research conducted in the west has shown that people in individualistic and collectivist cultures cope with cross-cultural adaptation stress differently, but there is still a lack of understanding how coping may function in the non-Western context. We conducted a longitudinal study to explore how the relationship between perceived cultural distance, stress- and problem-focused coping strategies may influence socio-cultural adaptation for international students in China. We collected longitudinal data on overseas students during the Fall semester of September 2013. Data were recollected 90 days later. The results show that: (1) perceived cultural distance did not predict the outcome of socio-cultural adaptation; (2) non-Asian students used more problem-focused coping strategies than Asian students; (3) interaction effect between stress, coping strategy and culture of origin is significant: for non-Asian students, problem-focused coping strategies alleviated the negative impact of stress on adaptation; and for Asian students, problem-focused coping strategies exacerbated the negative impact of stress on adaptation. This paper concludes with interpretation of our findings and how these results can be useful in higher education institutions in China.