There is considerable evidence that members of some groups, especially Euro-American women, are more likely to use formal helping systems than are other groups, especially men and people of color.  Although there have been a number of hypotheses about this, most have focused on three issues: (a) some groups have difficulty disclosing problems or emotions; (b) some groups feel uncomfortable going to Counseling Centers that have no culturally different counselors; and (c) racial or group mismatches prevent the development of a strong therapeutic alliance.

While these are important concerns, another way of approaching the difficulties of getting help to culturally different students is to increase the accessibility of resources that they would naturally use.  LaFramboisie (2000), for example, in writing about Native American peoples, talks about formal helping systems as the "servant" of informal ones (i.e., spiritual leaders and extended family).  She suggests that we should do what we can to marshall informal helping systems first and use formal helping systems to fill in the gaps that remain.
 
This paper addresses the natural coping systems of male and female students.  In particular, we anticipated that some coping mechanisms would be used more frequently than others, some would be used more frequently by one gender, and that the perceived effectiveness of these strategies might follow gender-specific patterns.

Participants were Clarion University students solicited from introductory classes (General Psychology and Psychology of Adjustment).  They ranged in age between 17 and 52 years (Md =19).  Ninety women and forty-two men completed questionnaires at out-of-class sessions. Participants were 84% Euro-American, 5.6% African-American, 1.6% Asian American,  2.4% Native American, and 6.4% Other.  Students were informed that assistance with our project was voluntary; participation was one of several options to earn extra credit.

A questionnaire consisting of 36 possible coping strategies was administered to participants.  Each person indicated their use and rated the effectiveness of each coping strategy on a five-point scale (1: not helpful - 5: very helpful).  Participants marked 0 if they did not use a particular coping strategy.
 
Participants were randomly assigned to one level of stress (mild, moderate, and severe) and responded to the coping mechanisms with this in mind.  Severity of stressors, however, was not considered in the following analyses.
 
Results were studied using a Chi square analysis with p < .05.

Of the coping skills assessed, 62.86% were reported to be used by 80% or more of the student participants.  Two coping strategies (talking to a therapist, hurting oneself) were used by 30% or fewer of the participants.

Significant gender-specific use of coping strategies was reported.  Females were significantly more likely to report using eating, cleaning, shopping, crying and praying than males.  Males were more likely to report using sex and masturbation than females.  See Table 1.

Participants identified talking to friends, listening to music, solving the problem, exercise, talking to significant others and time alone as the most helpful coping strategies they used.  They described ignoring others, doing nothing, and ignoring the problem as least helpful.  See Table 2.

Men and women differed in the perceived effectiveness of coping strategies.  Women were significantly more likely than men to report that shopping, screaming, crying and relaxation techniques were helpful.  See Table 3.

We anticipated and found that some coping strategies were reported to be used more frequently than others.  In addition, six (talking to friends, listening to music, solving the problem, exercise, talking to significant others, and spending time alone) were identified as very helpful by 70% or more of the participants.  These appear to be some of the healthiest and most culturally relevant coping strategies for this largely young, Euro-American sample.

Second, we believed there would be a significant gender difference in the use of some of the coping strategies.  This was also confirmed.  Six strategies were used differently by men and women (FF: eating, cleaning, shopping, crying, and praying; MM: sex).  Most of these fell within gender stereotypes, what you might "expect" a female or a male to say they used to solve problems.  Nonetheless, if we identified culturally relevant strategies as those used by more than 70% of our participants, men acted in "female ways" relative to two coping strategies (eating and cleaning).  A third strategy (shopping) came close to this 70% criterion.

Finally, we thought there may be a gender specific pattern in perceived effectiveness of the coping strategies.   Four of the techniques (shopping, screaming, crying and relaxation) were significantly more likely to be identified as helpful by women participants.  There were no coping strategies that were identified as being significantly more helpful for men than women.
 
Native Americans tend to turn to spiritual leaders and extended family (informal helping system) rather than to formal helping systems such as therapists (LaFramboisie, 2000).  Similar findings have been reported for African Americans and Hispanic cultures (Marin, 1990; Sue & Sue, 1997).  This may be due to one of two factors: (a) that counseling services are not perceived as culturally relevant because the staff is not racially or culturally diverse, or (b) a group may have a natural difficulty with disclosing problems or sharing emotions.  Although relatively few of our participants reported talking to therapists, somewhat more women than men used this strategy.  This is consistent with other research suggesting that Euro-American women are more likely to access formal helping systems than other groups.
 
Although students may see their coping strategies as effective, they may not be.  In particular, we want to look at how reported use of coping strategies predicts current levels of adjustment.  Furthermore, we plan to extend this research by selectively recruiting participants to look at racial and ethnic differences in coping strategies.

LaFramboise, T. D.  (2000, August).  Implications of research with Native American adolescents: For current and future practice.  In G. Roysicar-Sodowsky & E. Delgado-Romero (Chairs), Millenium multicultural counseling psychologists.  Symposium at the annual meetings of the American Psychological Association, Washington, D. C.

Marin, B. V. (1990).  Hispanic drug abuse: Culturally appropriate prevention and treatment.  In R. R. Watson (Ed.), Drug and alcohol abuse prevention. Drug and alcohol abuse reviews. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press.

Sue, D. W. & Sue, D.  (1999). Counseling the culturally different: Theory and practice (3rd ed.)  New York: John Wiley & Sons.

1. Presented at the 2002 annual meetings of the Eastern Psychological Association, Boston.  Supported, in part, by a POP Presidential Grant from Clarion University.

Table 1.
Percentage of reported use of coping strategies by men and women. Note: Only strategies that differ significantly in their reported use by men and women are reported here.

Table 2.
Strategies most consistently perceived as either helpful  (4 or 5 on scale from 1-5) or not helpful (1 or 2).

Table 3.
Percentage of men and women reporting a coping strategy is helpful (4 or 5 on scale from 1-5).  Note: Only strategies that differ significantly in perceived helpfulness are reported here.