Abstract

This study examined the concept of stress as perceived by Korean students and adults adopting the indigenous psychologies approach. The goal of the indigenous psychologies approach is to develop appropriate theories and methodologies that are sensitive to, and meaningful in, a particular cultural and social context. From this perspective, rather than the participant responding to the research instrument generated by the researcher, the participants themselves generate the type of events that ate stressful to them, how they appraise and cope with such situations, type of social support received, and the effectiveness of their coping strategy. A total of 235 participants (158 students, and 77 adults) completed an open-ended questionnaire. These responses were categorized, coded and analyzed qualitatively. The overall results indicated that for the adult sample, family conflict was reported to be the most stressful, followed by interpersonal conflict. For the student sample, academic achievement was reported to be the most stressful, followed by interpersonal conflict. Participants reacted emotionally to these stressful situation and adopted passive coping style by attempting to avoid the situation or by self-regulation. In terms of social support, they received the most help from their friends, followed by family members. The type of social support they received was mostly emotional social support. Although active coping style led to better adaptational outcome, the vast majority adopted a passive coping style. The overall pattern indicated a bias towards the emotional aspects rather than cognitive aspects of the stressful situation and by adopting emotional-focused coping style rather than problem-solving approach. In particular, self-regulation of negative emotions to, and avoidance of, stressful situation was the dominant response pattern. Implications of these results for understanding the lay version of stress and the further development of indigenous psychologies approach are discussed.