Testing predictive models of positive and negative affect with psychosocial, acculturation, and coping variables in a multiethnic undergraduate sample

Stress-coping-emotion theories

Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) Cognitive Theory of Stress and Coping proposes that emotions are the corollaries of an individual’s appraisal of a stressful situation. These affective responses then prompt individuals to decide what type of coping is to be engaged in as a response to the stressor. Typically, it is hypothesized that problem-focused coping strategies would lead to more positive affect, whereas emotion-focused and avoidance coping strategies would lead to more negative affect (Folkman 1984). Accordingly positive and negative affect have been shown to be two independent sets of emotional experiences and expression that co-exist in individuals – known as the “Two-factor’ theory of affect (Diener and Emmons 1985; Villodas et al. 2011). This orthogonal view of positive and negative affect is well illustrated by Watson et al.'s (1988) instrument development study of the Positive and Negative Schedule (PANAS) – a widely researched measure of affects that was also used in the current study. These researchers defined high positive affect as a state of “high energy, full concentration, and pleasurable engagement” (p. 1063; Watson et al. 1988) and are characterized by enthusiastic, active and alert feelings. Negative affect, on the other hand, is defined as “subjective distress and unpleasant engagement that subsumes a variety of averse mood states” (p.1063; Watson et al. 1988) and include feelings such as anger, contempt, disgust, guilt, fear, and nervousness.

With respect to coping specifically, there has been increasing conceptual and empirical evidence pointing to the effects of culture in shaping coping patterns and stress-coping processes particularly among members of culturally diverse groups (Kuo 20112014; Wong and Wong 2006). Recent comprehensive reviews of the literature have shown that diversity in preferences for different coping behaviors among racial, ethnic, and national groups clearly exists and that these cross-cultural differences in coping patterns are related to cultural dimensions, such as collectivism-individualism, interdependent-independent self construals, and acculturation (Kuo 20112013). This emerging body of cultural coping literature stresses the additional importance of examining the cultural aspects of coping overlooked by the prevailing, individualism-based, Western stress-coping theories and research in the extant literature (Wong and Wong 2006), such as the phenomenon of ‘collective coping’ – stress responses that derive from a person’s or a group’s collectivism value or orientation (Kuo 2013). In view of this emerging literature on culture and coping, it is therefore critical to assess culture’s role in studying the coping experiences of individuals with diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, as was the case for the sample of the current study. For this reason, the Cross-Cultural Coping Scale (CCCS: Kuo et al. 2006), a culturally-derived coping measure, was employed to assess the coping behaviors of the current sample. Specific information about the CCCS is described in the Measures section later in the paper.

Psychosocial predictor model of affects

Currently limited research or conceptual models have addressed the concurrent effects of multiple psychosocial antecedents of positive and negative affect. One rare exception is Fitzell and Pakenham’s (2010) psychosocial stress-coping model of positive and negative adjustment. The authors identified a constellation of predictive factors for positive and negative adjustment. They then tested the model based on a sample of 622 caregivers of patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer in Australia. In this model Fitzell and Pakenham posited that stress appraisal, social support, and coping would be predictive of caregivers’ positive adjustment, as measured by positive affect and other adjustment indicators such as life satisfaction, and of caregivers' negative adjustment, as measured by psychological distress. The results of the regression analyses after controlling for the caregivers’ demographics showed that perceived stress, coping strategies, and social support were all significant predictors of both positive and negative affect in the expected directions. This present study extended and expanded on Fitzell and Pakenham’s original psychosocial model by including additional cultural variables (i.e., Canadian acculturation, heritage acculturation and collective coping behaviors) and by testing the model with an ethnically diverse sample.

Acculturation theory

The seminal acculturation theory by John Berry (19972006) represents the most influential and the most widely cited psychological theory of cultural adaptation. This acculturation theory is derived from Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) early research on transactional theory of stress and coping (Berry 2006). At the individual level of acculturation, Berry’s theory posits that multiple ‘moderating factors’ prior to and during acculturation can act to facilitate or impede on the quality of an acculturating person’s long term cultural adaptation in the host society (Berry 1997). More specifically, Berry hypothesized that moderating variables associated with the individual prior to acculturation, such as age, gender, education, religion and spirituality, and personality, interact with moderating variables during acculturation, such as acculturation strategies, coping strategies and resources, social support, etc. It is therefore conceptually germane that stress, coping, social support, religious/spiritual orientation, and acculturation are integral and interacting elements that contribute to the long term adaptation of individuals within this classic acculturation framework. These moderating factors are examined in the current study as potential predictors for affective outcomes. Specifically, acculturation is conceptualized and measured based on the bidirectional model of acculturation, assessing both participants’ cultural identification with the mainstream Canadian culture as well as with their heritage cultures (or enculturation) (Kuo 2010; Ryder et al. 2000).

Psychosocial variables

Previous research has provided some clues to the nature and direction of the relationships between affects and the psychosocial and cultural variables examined in the present research. In terms of negative affect, higher levels of life stress/strain, higher levels of avoidance and emotion-focused coping, lower levels of daily spiritual experience, lower levels of social support, and lower levels of coping have been found to be associated with higher levels of negative affect across a number of studies, including a community-based survey of women in Canada (Nelson 1990), a health survey of adult population in the U.S. (Whitehead and Bergeman 2011), and an earlier research by Folkman (1984). Furthermore, in a recent model testing study of 623 undergraduate students in Canada, Green et al. (2012) found a significant direct positive relationship between participants’ negative affect and stress. In the same study negative affect was, however, not related to the participants’ social support as measured either by support network size or support satisfaction.

On the other hand, lower levels of life stress/strain, higher levels of daily spiritual experience, higher levels of social support, and more frequent use of proactive and problem-focus coping behaviors have been found to predict higher levels of positive affect in several empirical studies (Folkman 1984; Whitehead and Bergeman 2011). In the model-testing study cited above by Green et al. (2012), it was further revealed that positive affect was significantly related to undergraduate participants’ support network size or satisfaction, though no relationships between participants’ reported level of stress and positive affect were found. In the study by Fitzell and Pakenham (2010) of caregivers of cancer patients mentioned earlier, social support and coping were found to be significant positive predictors of positive affect but their perception of stress was a negative predictor of positive affect.

Acculturation-related variables

The authors’ literature review on PsychInfo yielded only a handful of published studies to have attempted to address the link between acculturation and affects. Pan and her colleagues published a series of articles on cross-cultural comparative study of adaptation of Chinese internationals students in Australia and Hong Kong using negative and positive affect as measures of outcome (e.g., Pan 2011; Pan and Wong 2011; Pan et al. 2008). As an example, in one study assessing positive affect among Chinese international students in Australia (N = 440) and Hong Kong (N = 227), Pan et al. (2008) found that positive affect was negatively predicted by acculturative stress due to academic work and social interaction in the host culture in the Hong Kong sample, whereas in the Australian sample, it was predicted by acculturative stress resulting only from social interaction.

In yet another more recent research reported by Pan and her colleagues, acculturative stressors and acculturative strategies were examined as predictors of negative affect in samples similar to the one described above (Pan and Wong 2011). “Marginalization’ acculturation strategy reported by Chinese international students in both Hong Kong and Australia predicted more negative affect, whereas “assimilation’ acculturation strategy reported by Chinese international students in Australia predicted less negative affect. Moreover, acculturative stress resulting from academic work positively predicted negative affect in both sample, but acculturative stress resulting from cultural differences positively predicted negative affect in the Hong Kong sample only. These differential predictive patterns of negative and positive affect related to acculturation are noted in other studies as well. For example, in a study of first-year ethnic minority university students in the U.S., it was found that participants’ acculturative stress was significantly related to negative affect, but not to positive affect (Paukert et al. 2006). Given these divergent findings and the scarcity of research on acculturation and affect, more research is clearly needed.

Hypothesis #1

It is posited that perceived stress, social support, Canadian acculturation, heritage acculturation, religious coping, collective coping, avoidance coping and engagement coping will significantly predict positive affect in the current sample. Specifically, it is hypothesized that more perceived stress, religious coping and avoidance coping would predict less positive affect, while more social support, Canadian acculturation, heritage acculturation, collective coping and engagement coping would predict more positive affect in the sample.

Hypothesis #2

It is posited that perceived stress, social support, Canadian acculturation, heritage acculturation, religious coping, collective coping, avoidance coping and engagement coping will significantly predict negative affect in the current sample. Specifically, it is expected that more perceived stress, avoidance coping, and religious coping would predict greater negative affect, while more social support, Canadian acculturation, heritage acculturation, collective coping and engagement coping would predict less negative affect in the present student sample.

Procedure

A total of 301 participants were recruited through two separate methods with the aim to maximize the ethnic diversity of the sample: a) the participant pool system at the Department of Psychology at the University of Windsor, Canada, where this study was conducted; and b) various ethnic student organizations and the International Student Center on the university campus. With the former approach, participating students in the study were compensated with credit points assigned to their psychology course grades. For the latter group, for compensation participants were offered a chance to win one of five $10 gift certificates by entering their names into a draw. Prior to participating in the research the participants were presented with an informed consent form with an explanation about the purposes of the research and their rights according to the ethical procedures specified and approved by the University of Windsor’s Research Ethics Board. All participants signed the informed consent before they proceed to complete a paper-and-pencil questionnaire in the first author’s on-campus research lab.

Among the 301 undergraduate participants 229 were women and 72 were men, with a mean age of 22.8 (SD = 2.99). The significantly greater numbers of female participants (76%) than male participants (24%) in the sample likely reflected the higher proportion of women enrolling in psychology majors and courses than men. In terms of cultural characteristics, the sample was quite diverse. The sample comprised of 29.83% White/Europeans (N=88), 19.32% South Asians (N=57), 16.16% East Asians (N=49), 14.24% Blacks/Africans (N=42), 13.22% Middle Easterners (N=39) and 6.78% of those who identified Latinos/Latinas, Native Canadians, and mixed racial/ethnic backgrounds (N=20). With respect to immigrant status, the majority (79.4%) reported to be Canadian citizens, 14.3% reported to be international students, 5.6% reported to be landed immigrants, and 0.7% reported to be refugees. About one third of the sample identified themselves as first generation (32.9%) and second generation (32.6%) immigrant, respectively. A fifth of the participants identified as third or later generation (19.9%), and 14.6% identified as first generation international students.

Measures

Perceived Stress Scale- 10 Item (PSS: Cohen et al. 1983): The 10-item PSS is a self-report scale that assesses respondents’ perception of the degree of unpredictability and stress in their life during the past month. The scale was reported to have demonstrated favorable psychometric properties with high internal consistency across three college student samples (dormitory residents, psychology students, and student participants in a smoking-cessation program) in the original test development study (Cohen et al. 1983). Respondents rate their levels of stress on a 5-point Likert scale, with 0 = never to 4 = very often.

Vancouver Index of Acculturation (VIA: Ryder et al. 2000). The VIA is bidirectional measure of acculturation which assesses respondents’ cultural identification with the mainstream, dominant culture (i.e., Canadian culture) and with their heritage culture (i.e., the culture of birthplace or original ethnic culture) independently on two separate subscales. The original VIA consists of 20 items with half of the items assessing the mainstream subscale and the other half the heritage subscale. The two sets of items are parallel in their contents. Participants respond to the VIA on a 7-point Likert scale with 1 = very strongly disagree and 7 = very strongly agree. In the present study the score for the former was named ‘Canadian Acculturation’ and the latter ‘Heritage Acculturation’ in the analyses.

Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS: Zimet et al. 1988). The 12-item MSPSS is a measure of individuals’ perception of interpersonal support and resources from: family, friends, and significant others, on a 7-point Likert scale with 1 = very strongly disagree and 7 = very strongly agree. The measure has sound psychometric properties with the internal consistency alphas for the subscales and the overall scale ranged from .85 to .91 and test-retest reliability ranged from .72 to .85 in the original test development study.

Cross-Cultural Coping Scale (CCCS: Kuo et al. 2006). The CCCS is a 26-item, scenario-based measure of coping behaviors developed and designed to assess both the collectivistic and individualistic aspects of stress responses (Kuo et al. 2006). The scale was originally tested with a sample of Chinese Canadian adolescents with varying degrees of acculturation levels (Kuo et al. 2006), but has subsequently been adopted in several research studies with culturally and developmentally diverse samples (e.g., Kuo and Gingrich 2004; Wester et al. 2006). The scale is comprised of three subscales: Collective Coping, Avoidance Coping, and Engagement Coping. The scale has demonstrated favorable psychometric properties in terms of internal consistency reliabilities of the subscales and criterion validity with acculturation levels and interdependent-independent self construals as reported in the original instrument development and validation study (Kuo et al. 2006). In the current study, the researchers used a hypothetical stress vignette based on a common stressful scenario undergraduate students often face, with respect to academic failure or poor academic performance. The scenario depicts a student’s depressive symptoms (e.g., sadness, hopelessness, problem with sleep and appetite, etc.) resulting from having difficulties with school works and performances and questioning of his/her status at the university and future career. The participants responded on how they would cope in such a scenario on each of the CCCS items on a 6-point Likert, with 1 = A very inaccurate description of what I would do and 6 = A very accurate description of what I would do.

Brief RCOPE (Pargament et al. 2000). Brief RCOPE is a 10-item measure that asks participants to think about major problems in their life and how they try to cope with it in relation to God. The items are scored on a Likert scale of 1 = A great deal, 2 = Quite a bit, 3 = Somewhat, 4 = Not at all. Items 1 to 5 on this measure are positive coping items, and items 6 to 10 are negative coping items. The scores of the latter items were reversed and combined with the scores of the former to form a single composite score of Religious coping in the analyses in the present study.

Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS: Watson et al. 1988). The 20-item PANAS is a self-report measure designed to assess respondents’ positive affect (10 items) and negative affect (10 items). When tested with a sample of university students and community-based adults in the instrument development study, the internal consistency was .89 for positive affect and .85 for negative affect at the moment of responding to the measure. The 8-week test-retest reliability was .68 for positive affect and .71 for negative affect in general for the participants (Watson et al. 1988). The respondent is asked to indicate how she/he is experiencing each of the listed emotions currently based on a 5-point Likert scale with 1 = Very slightly or not at all, 2 = Little, 3 = Moderately, 4 = Quite a bit, 5 = Extremely. In a recent study by Villodas et al. (2011) the PANAS was found to demonstrate good reliabilities and convergent and discriminant validity with a sample of ethnically diverse adolescents in the U.S. comprised of Hispanic, Asian, African American, Native, Middle Eastern, and biracial youth.

Framework for regressional analyses

Two separate hierarchical regression analyses with an identical set of predictors were conducted, one model predicting positive affect and the other negative affect. Given previous relationships found in the literature, participants’ levels of perceived stress, social support, and Canadian acculturation and heritage acculturation were controlled for by entering these variables in the first step of the regression. Religious coping, collective coping, avoidance coping, and engagement coping were entered into the second step of the equation.

Correlations among variables

Hypothesis 1 (regression model for positive affect)

Hypothesis 2 (regression model for negative affect)

Limitations of the study

It is important to consider the results of the present investigation in light of a number of limitations associated with the characteristics of the present research. First, the study was based on a cross-sectional design. Consequently, any causal relationships between the psychosocial, acculturation, and coping variables in the predictor equations and positive and negative affect can only be inferred. The interpretation of the findings, therefore, requires extra caution. Second, the current results were established on a sample that was predominantly women (76%), due to the fact that the majority of the participants were recruited from the research participant pool among students who took psychology courses at the university where the study occurred. It is unclear whether and to what extent this gender disproportion among the participants might have affected the study's results. Undoubtedly, future studies examining positive and negative affect should either seek more balanced gender representations in a study or focus on the experiences of either men or women separately. Lastly, the present investigation was conducted with university student sample in a single university in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. The generalizability of the research findings for student populations elsewhere or nonstudent populations cannot be verified until future research.

Implications and directions for future research

In view of the scarcity of existing cultural and cross-cultural research on affects in general and the limitations of the present study noted above, there is significant potential for future research in this area. First, future studies involving prediction of positive and negative affect would benefit from having a longitudinal design. Such a methodological approach would enable researchers to more precisely disentangle any causal relationship between the psychosocial, cultural, and coping predictors and the affects. Second, in the current study neither heritage acculturation nor Canadian acculturation significantly predicted positive or negative affect in the regression analyses. While acculturation was not a primary focus of this investigation, it was nevertheless unclear whether these findings were an artifact of the specific characteristics of the current sample, with nearly 30% of the participants being of White/European background and 42.5% of them coming from second and later generation immigrant background. To verify these observations future research should seek to replicate the present investigation with sample populations for which acculturation and cultural adjustment experiences may be more salient and relevant (e.g., newcomer immigrants, international students, sojourners, etc.).

Third, it is observed that the prevailing cross-cultural literature on acculturation is currently dominated by research that views and assesses cultural adaptation/adjustment from a narrow psychological distress and symptomology (depressive and anxiety symptoms, etc.) perspective (Yoon et al. 2012). The current study, however, demonstrated the benefits of exploring the potential positive side of stress-coping and cultural adaptation empirically – an approach that would afford the field a fuller, richer, and more comprehensive understanding of coping, adjustment and well-being among culturally diverse individuals (Folkman 2008; Pan et al. 2008). Hence, it is hoped that this present study can serve as a catalyst to encourage other researchers in cultural/cross-cultural psychology and acculturation to consider incorporating positive emotions and positive indicators of adjustment (e.g., subjective well-being and resilience) into future research.

Finally, an attempt was made in the present study to search and piece together various discrete yet relevant theoretical perspectives to help guide and inform the research (as reviewed under the “Theoretical frameworks” section in the introduction). From this standpoint, it seems that continuous theory development works in this area would be timely and highly desirable. More concerted and systematic efforts are needed to articulate and integrate contemporary theories of stress-coping-emotion, acculturation, and psychosocial predictive models of positive and negative affect. Ultimately, scholars should strive towards extending existing acculturation theories and propositions to a framework of stress-coping-adaptation that is informed and enriched by the emerging theories of affects and emotions.