The purpose of this study was (1) to investigate early adolescents' ways of coping as related to the types of adolescents' problems (academic, interpersonal, and emotional), (2) to investigate early adolescents' ways of coping depending on their perce...
The purpose of this study was (1) to investigate early adolescents' ways of coping as related to the types of adolescents' problems (academic, interpersonal, and emotional), (2) to investigate early adolescents' ways of coping depending on their perceptions of parental attitudes.
The sample was consisted of 425 students who were the fifth, and the sixth graders enrolled in elementary schools located in Seoul or Ansan. I measured subject's perception of parental attitudes, and ways of coping, using questionnaire. Statistical methods adopted for data analysis were frequencies, percentiles, mean, standard deviation, t-test and reliability analysis.
Major findings were as follows :
1. There were sex differences in early adolescents' stress, ways of coping and perception of parental attitudes. Girls used more problem-focused coping than boys.
2. Early adolescents' ways of coping varied across their problems. In general, early adolescents used more problem-focused coping in controllable situations - problems related to academic stress - and more emotion-focused coping in problems which were out of their control.
3. Early adolescents' ways of coping varied across their perceived parental support snd parental control. In problem-focused coping, subjects who perceived higher parental support used problem-focused coping more often than those who perceived lower parental support. In parental control level, there was no difference according to problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping.
Finally, it was suggested that more elaborated ways of coping checklist for adolescents need to be made, and the relationship between other kinds of parental attitudes and adolescents' ways of coping should be investigated.