Vol.5, No.2, 170-174 (2013) Health
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/health.2013.52023
Coping style and mental health on high school
students
Zhi Wang1,2
1Department of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China; wangzhih@swu.edu.cn
2Center for Mental Health Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
Received 27 November 2012; revised 26 December 2012; accepted 3 January 2013
ABSTRACT
Objective: To explore the coping style of high
school students and its relationship to mental
health. Methods: Make a survey upon 320 stu-
dents through coping style questionnaire and
MSMH. Results: High school students often re-
sort to problem solving and appeal to coping
factors. No di stinct gend er differe nc e is found in
coping style. There are different degrees of
correlation between coping style and mental
health. Remarkable grade difference is shown in
the factor of appealing in coping style and the
three factors of compulsion, anxiety and mental
imbalance in mental health. Conclusion: Rela-
tively mature coping style has come into exis-
tence among high school students, but more
guidance and assistance are in need in culti-
vating the coping style and improving the men-
t al health.
Keywords: High School Students; Coping Style;
Mental Health
1. INTRODUCTION
Coping style is the process of cognitive and behavioral
efforts made by individuals under pressure to alleviate its
negative effects. It is mentally healthy to form a proper
cognition and evaluation towards events and adopt a
positive coping style in front of pressure. Compas de-
fines coping style from the developmental angle, and
thinks that coping style is one side of stress reaction.
When individual faces stressful events and environments,
individual has conscious efforts to regulate emotion,
cognition and behavior [1]. High school is a critical pe-
riod of life and students are often confronted with pres-
sure of further studies and employment as well as mental
perplex in puberty. Thus, it is of great significance to
explore the relationship between coping style and mental
health of high school students. There are preliminary
studies made by Huang Xiting, etc. towards the coping
style of middle school students, which show that the
main coping style of middle school students in China are
problem solving, appealing for help, avoidance, abreact-
ing, fantasy and endurance and that girls prefer coping
style of endurance and abreacting while boys prefer that
of fantasy when comparing girls with boys [2]. No dis-
tinct change of coping style is noticed in the age of mid-
dle school students. Liang Junlin’s study shows that
negative coping style has negative correlation with men-
tal health [3]. Jiang Qianjin’s study shows that coping
style has positive correlation with SCL-90, SDS, SAS
and scores of N scale in EPQ [4]. The study finds that
coping style is highly associated with mental health [5].
The paper delves into the characteristics of high school
student coping style and its relationship towards mental
health on the basis of previous studies, in order to pro-
vide reference to high school student mental health edu-
cation and improve their mental health.
2. PARTICIPANTS AND METHOD
2.1. Participants
320 high school students were recruited to take part in
the study. They were from Grades One, Two and Three
of Dengfeng High School, Dengfeng city, Henan pro-
vince. 284 effective questionnaires were retrieved from
155 male students and 129 female students, with 72 from
Grade One, 72 from Grade Two, 67 from Grade Three,
and 73 from Grade Three of previous year. The study
was approved by the local review board for human par-
ticipant research and each participant provided informed
consent prior to participate in the experiment.
2.2. Methods
2.2.1. Coping S ty l e Questionnaire
The questionnaire is a revised vision by Xiao Jihua
and Xu Xiufeng which is based on Folkman and Bond’s
coping and defense. There are 62 items, including 6 fac-
tors-problem solving, self-accusation, appealing for help,
fantasy, avoidance and rationalization. The factor loaded
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Z. Wang / Health 5 (2013) 170-174 171
value of what constructs the items of coping style ques-
tionnaire stays above 0.35 and the re-measured related
coefficient of the six coping factors above 0.62, which
make the questionnaire a good credibility and validity
[6].
2.2.2. MSMH
It consists of 10 subscales formulated by Wang Ji-
sheng, namely compulsion, stubbornness, hostility, tense
and sensitive interpersonal relationship, depression, an-
xiety, study pressure, maladjustment and emotional im-
balance, amounting to a total of 60 items. It adopts a
5-level grading with each item containing a declarative
sentence. The table is proven to have a good degree of
distinction, credibility and validity [7].
3. RESULTS
3.1. Scoring Statistics of Different Coping
Styles
As is indicated in Table 1, coping styles employed by
high school students is in such an order as: problem
solving, asking for help, fantasy, rationalization, retreat
and self-blame (from more to less). It shows that high
school students tend to adopt positive and mature coping
styles such as problem solving, asking for help. Those
negative and immature coping styles such as retreat and
self-blame are less adopted.
3.2. Anal ysis on Gender Differences of
Coping Style
As is indicated in Table 2, boys’ means for coping
styles’ factors such as “problem solving”, “fantasy” is
higher than the girls’, while the girls’ is higher than boys’
in the “asking for help” factor. All coping styles’ factors
means do not show significant gender differences.
3.3. The Relevance between Senior High
School Students’ Coping Styles and
Their Mental Health Conditions
Table 3 indicates that senior high school students’
coping style—“problem solving”, is significantly nega-
tive related with each factors of mental health scale; ex-
cept hostility factor, total means in mental health scale,
“asking for help” factor is negatively related with factors
such as paranoia, interpersonal sensitivity and tension,
maladjustment and psychological imbalance factors ex-
tremely significantly or significantly. While self-blame,
fantasy factors are positively related with each factors of
middle school students’ mental health extremely signifi-
cantly.
3.4. Scoring Comparison of Different
Grades of Senior High School Students’
Coping Styles and Each Factor of
Mental Health Conditions
Table 4 indicates that: among coping styles, “asking
for help” factor show very significant grade differences,
but other factors do not; Among mental health conditions,
three factors—obsession, anxiety, psychological imbal-
ance show extremely significant grade differences.
In order to further study concrete grade differences,
LSD is applied to several factors (asking for help, obses-
sion, anxiety, and psychological imbalance) which has
significant grade differences for mean multiple compare-
son analysis. Ta ble 5 indicates that: regarding factor of
“asking for help”, the senior one and the senior two show
extremely significant or significant grade differences
with the review of senior three respectively; regarding
the factor of obsession, the senior one and senior two
show significant grade differences with each other, and
both show extremely significant ones.
Table 1. Scoring statistics of different coping styles.
Styles Mean Std. deviation Sum
Problem-solving0.6799 0.1946 193.08
Self-blame 0.3018 0.2117 85.70
Asking for help 0.4680 0.2398 132.90
Fantasy 0.4553 0.2095 129.30
Retreat 0.4081 0.1842 115.90
Rationalization 0.4130 0.1692 117.30
Table 2. Analysis on gender differences of coping style (X ± SD).
Coping styles Girls (n = 129) Boys (n = 155) Total t
Problem-solving 0.67 ± 0.19 0.70 ± 0.20 0.68 ± 0.19 1.712
Self-blame 0.29 ± 0.23 0.31 ± 0.19 0.30 ± 0.21 0.577
Asking for help 0.49 ± 0.23 0.45 ± 0.23 0.47 ± 0.24 1.662
Fantasy 0.44 ± 0.21 0.47 ± 0.21 0.46 ± 0.21 1.156
Retreat 0.40 ± 0.17 0.41 ± 0.19 0.41 ± 0.18 0.421
Rationalization 0.41 ± 0.17 0.42 ± 0.17 0.41 ± 0.17 0.268
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Z. Wang / Health 5 (2013) 170-174
172
Table 3. The relevance between senior high school students’ coping styles and their mental health conditions (r).
Problem-solving Self-blame Asking for helpFantasy Retreat Rationalization
Obsession 0.233** 0.427** 0.117* 0.400** 0.151** 0.087
Paranoia 0.261** 0.420** 0.212** 0.315** 0.190** 0.227**
Hostility 0.315** 0.380** 0.044 0.357** 0.093 0.120*
Interpersonal sensitivity tension 0.307** 0.495** 0.184** 0.390** 0.227** 0.237**
Depression 0.430** 0.609** 0.120* 0.355** 0.334** 0.157**
Anxiety 0.396** 0.532** 0.152* 0.434** 0.293** 0.084
Study stress 0.379** 0.455** 0.124* 0.379** 0.355** 0.220**
Maladjustment 0.309** 0.309** 0.189** 0.275** 0.258** 0.184**
Emotion imbalance 0.340** 0.435** 0.147* 0.352* 0.229** 0.139**
Psychological imbalance 0.200** 0.379** 0.210** 0.316** 0.175** 0.093
Total average marks 0.331** 0.515* 0.114 0.440** 0.287** 0.23**
Note: *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01.
Table 4. Scoring comparison of different grades of senior high school students’ coping styles and each factor of mental health condi-
tions (M ± SD).
Senior one
(n = 72)
Senior two
(n = 72)
Senior three
(n = 67)
Review of senior there
(n = 73) F
Problem-solving 0.67 ± 0.17 0.66 ± 0.21 0.67 ± 0.23 0.72 ± 0.17 1.357
Self-blame 0.25 ± 0.17 0.32 ± 0.23 0.31 ± 0.24 0.33 ± 0.20 2.415
Asking for help 0.49 ± 0.26 0.52 ± 0.24 0.45 ± 0. 0.41 ± 0.21 2.899**
Fantasy 0.43 ± 0.19 0.48 ± 0.21 0.46 ± 0.22 0.46 ± 0.21 0.805
Retreat 0.38 ± 0.17 0.42 ± 0.19 0.44 ± 0.18 0.40 ± 0.20 1.556
Rationalization 0.45 ± 0.17 0.43 ± 0.18 0.39 ± 0.16 0.38 ± 0.16 2.504
Obsession 1.99 ± 0.48 2.20 ± 0.15 2.10 ± 0.57 2.34 ± 0.65 4.747**
Paranoia 2.00 ± 0.48 2.05 ± 0.62 2.04 ± 0.58 2.23 ± 0.65 2.221
Hostility 1.98 ± 0.63 2.01 ± 0.73 1.90 ± 0.73 1.98 ± 0.65 0.327
Interpersonal tension
& sensitivity 2.14 ± 0.61 2.30 ± 0.72 2.30 ± 0.78 2.46 ± 0.73 2.470
Depression 1.20 ± 0.63 2.14 ± 0.71 2.14 ± 0.71 2.16 ± 0.65 0.895
Anxiety 2.11 ± 0.67 2.36 ± 0.82 2.47 ± 0.80 2.55 ± 0.83 4.167**
Study stress 2.35 ± 0.78 2.44 ± 0.78 2.34 ± 0.81 2.25 ± 0.69 0.720
Maladjustment 2.28 ± 0.57 2.22 ± 0.67 2.24 ± 0.61 2.25 ± 0.62 0.482
Emotion imbalance 2.40 ± 0.59 2.46 ± 0.74 2.41 ± 0.67 2.52 ± 0.62 0.482
Psychological imbalance 1.98 ± 0.49 2.14 ± 0.67 2.23 ± 0.64 2.31 ± 0.57 4.162**
Note: *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01.
with the review of senior three.; regarding the factor of
anxiety, the senior one shows significant grade differ-
ences with the senior three and the review of senior three;
regarding the factor of Psychological unbalance, there
exists significant grade differences between the senior
one and senior three, and extremely significant ones be-
tween the senior one and the review of senior three.
4. DISCUSSION
It is found in the research that senior high students
tend to take positive methods (solution and consultation)
rather than negative ones (escape and self-accusation) to
deal with daily issues. And it indicates that senior high
students are able to analyze and solve problems in a rea-
sonable way and turn for other’s help with increase of
age, horizon and cognition, which is in accordance with
the research of Lan Yuping, whose findings show that the
usual coping style taken by middle school students to
deal with daily issues are solving the problem, consulta-
tion, fancy, escape, rationalization and self-accusation
successively [8].
And it is found in the research that there is no obvious
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Z. Wang / Health 5 (2013) 170-174 173
Table 5. Multiple comparison of several factors with significant differences among students of different grades.
Asking for help Obsession Anxiety Psychological
F P F P F P F P
Senior two 0.031 0.441 0.211* 0.034 0.248 0.059 0.160 0.109
Senior three 0.043 0.292 0.116 0.250 0.357** 0.008 0.255* 0.013
Senior one
The review 0.078* 0.049 0.359** 0.000 0.432** 0.001 0.334** 0.001
Senior one 0.031 0.441 0.211* 0.034 0.248 0.059 0.160 0.109
Senior three 0.073 0.071 0.095 0.346 0.109 0.413 0.095 0.349
Senior two
The review 0.109** 0.006 0.148 0.133 0.185 0.157 0.174 0.080
Senior one 0.043 0.292 0.116 0.250 0.356** 0.008 0.255* 0.013
Senior two 0.073 0.071 0.095 0.346 0.109 0.413 0.095 0.349
Senior three
The review 0.035 0.379 0.243* 0.016 0.076 0.569 0.079 0.435
Senior one 0.078* 0.049 0.359** 0.000 0.432** 0.001 0.334** 0.001
Senior two 0.109** 0.006 0.148 0.133 0.185 0.157 0.174 0.080
The review
Senior three 0.035 0.379 0.243* 0.016 0.076 0.569 0.079 0.435
Note: *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01.
difference between different genders in coping style and
mental health, which is in accordance with findings of
research carried out by Wang Guipin [9]. However, it can
be seen from Table 2 that boys tend to solve problems
individually instead of asking for someone’s help com-
pared with girls. And it is also found that coping style is
closely related with mental health. Students with positive
coping style often possess higher mental health, which,
as a result, indicates that the education of mental health
should concentrate on students’ coping style so as to im-
prove their mental health.
Besides, senior high students from different grades
differ with each other in consultation, anxiety, obsession
and mental unbalance. And further multiple analyses
indicates that with the increase of age and the failure of
college entrance examination, students from higher grade
who possess more self-respect and stronger mental
adapting ability, tend to solve problems individually or
escape the situation instead of asking for someone’s help.
However, when they face the college entrance examina-
tion again, this so-called life-turning point pushes them
into more anxiety and burden compared other middle
school students. Because of the existence of the uncon-
trollable factor namely the college entrance examination,
their efforts do not pay back as they expect, which, as a
result, strengthen their mental unbalance and unsteadi-
ness. Thus it is of great necessity to offer special educa-
tion of mental health to this group of students.
5. CONCLUSIONS
The results of the study indicate that: 1) Senior high
students tend to take positive attitudes rather than nega-
tive ones to deal with daily issues; 2) There is no obvi-
ous difference between male and female students on the
coping methods; 3) The coping style of senior high stu-
dents is opposite to each factor of mental measure of
middle school students. And the factors of self-blame and
fantasy, however, are obviously related to each factor of
their mental health; 4) There is obvious difference on the
factor of consultation in coping style among students
from different grades, which can be easily seen in other
factors. The difference is also obvious on the obsession,
anxiety and mental unbalance among students from dif-
ferent grades in terms of mental health. Moreover, those
who once failed in the college entrance examination dif-
fer a lot in the consultation, obsession, anxiety and men-
tal unbalance with other middle school students.
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research was supported by the project of Southwest University
Chongqing H&SS Key Research Institute “Research on Training Strat-
egy of Adaptation for Teenagers”, the Fundamental Research Funds for
the Central University (No. swu1209415), and Education Science Plan-
ning Office in Chongqing (No. 10-GJ-0240).
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