Development and validation of a collectivist coping styles inventory

This research consisted of 3 studies, with a sample of over 3,000 Taiwanese college students, aimed at developing and validating a situation-specific Collectivist Coping Styles (CCS) inventory from an Asian perspective. The results from the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a stable 5-factor structure of the CCS: (a) Acceptance, Refraining, and Striving; (b) Family Support; (c) Religion-Spirituality; (d) Avoidance and Detachment; and (e) Private Emotional Outlets. These factors reflected Asians' use of a combination of primary and secondary control efforts and represented different constellations of items than typically found on coping-problem solving inventories in Western countries. Estimates of concurrent and construct validity suggest the CCS is related to a problem solving inventory, an overall problem resolution index, 2 psychological distress measures, and an index of how much the trauma interfered with the lives of participants in conceptually expected directions but is not strongly related to social desirability. Overall, the CCS was found to be a useful and psychometrically sound measure of collectivistic coping. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.