Acculturation and Perceived Family Support: Influences on Coping Among Asian American College Students

Abstract

Acculturation among Asian Americans has become an increasingly important construct for researchers and professionals in psychology, particularly for the college-aged population. Acculturation has been studied extensively and linked to an array of indices, including how acculturation interacts with different coping. This study used Schwartz et al. (2010)’s framework of acculturation consisting of three main domains: cultural practices, cultural values, and cultural identifications and how the domains are related to coping. Among Asian American college students, perceived family support may be a moderator in how such individuals cope with different challenges. Therefore, this study examined how acculturation related to coping and how perceived family support moderated the relationship between acculturation and coping in a sample of 205 Asian American college students. Three hierarchical regressions were run for each domain of acculturation. There was a significant relationship between cultural practices and coping. There was also a significant relationship between horizontal-collectivism and coping. In addition, vertical-individualism and perceived family support significantly interacted in predicting coping, suggesting that the relationship between at least one type of cultural values and coping may differ as a function of family support. For cultural identifications, there were also relationships for cultural identifications and coping. The implications for Asian American college students and areas of further research for the field of counseling, universities, and multicultural psychology are discussed.