Psychology
2012. Vol.3, No.2, 136-142
Published Online February 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/psych) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/psych.2012.32021
Copyright © 2012 SciRes.
136
On the Intermediary Function of Coping Styles: Between
Self-Concept and Subjective Well Being of Adolescents of Han,
Qiang and Yi Nationalities
Tianmei Zhou1*, Dingchu Wu2, Lin Lin1
1Institute of the Educational Science, Neijiang Normal University, Neijiang, China
2Institute of the Educational Science, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China
Email: *zhtm6566@yahoo.cn
Received October 24th, 2011; revised November 23rd, 2011; accepted December 27th, 2011
In order to know the influence of adolescents’ self-concept on the subjective well being and the function
of coping styles in them, the author adopted the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale, Simplified Coping Style
Scale and the Questionnaire on the Subjective Euphoria, and made a survey on six middle schools of Si-
chuan province and got back 867 valid answered questionnaires. The results show that 1) differences are
obvious in self-concept, coping styles and subject well being among adolescents of Han, Qiang and Yi
nationalities; 2) the positive self-concept exerts a notable positive influence on subjective well being, and
the negative exerts a negative one; 3) the coping styles play an intermediary role in the influence of
self-concept on the subjective well being. On the above basis, the author concludes that the self-concept
exerts influence on the subjective well being directly as well as indirectly through the mediation of coping
styles.
Keywords: Adolescents; Self-Concept; Coping Style; Subjective Well Being
Introduction
As the core of personality, the self-concept is the knowledge
about one’s own character, ability, appearance, attitude, emo-
tion and values. And it is the cognition on one own as the obj-
ective party. It is usually treated as a psychological variant in
self evaluation. The subjective wellbeing is an important com-
prehensive psychological index for judging people’s quality of
life (Wu, 2000). This includes cognition and emotion. The for-
mer is aiming at the individual’s satisfaction with life, which
involves the general life satisfaction and the life satisfaction
with specific aspect. And the latter refers to the individual’s
emotional experience which has two subtypes: positive emo-
tions and negative emotions (Diener, 1984). T. Terry and Hue-
bner (1995) showed in their study that subjective wellbeing and
self-concept are the two different categories which, however,
are in certain relation with each other, namely, the more posi-
tive the self-concept is, the stronger the subjective wellbeing
will become. Some studies indicate that the various factors of
self-concept are in positive correlation with all the other aspects
except symmetrical emotion. As to the prediction for indexes A
and B of degree of life satisfaction, the self-physiology and
self-psychology in the self-concept have the striking predicting
effect (Li, 2006), i.e. the higher one’s self cognition is, the
higher the index of degree of his life satisfaction will become.
The coping strategy is the cognitive and behavioral means an
individual takes when facing a stressful situation or event
(Tong, 2004). As an important intermediary in the stress action,
it plays a protective role either physical or mentally (Wang,
Wang, & Ma, 1999).The relevant studies show that the indi-
vidual’s self-concept is in a striking positive correlation with
coping strategies. For instance, the research reveals that the
various dimensions of rural children’s self-concept are in strik-
ing negative correlation with the negative coping strategy, but
in positive correlation with the positive one (Wang & Fan,
2009). The researches made on both university students and
middle school ones also show that all the positive factors in the
self-concept are in a striking correlation with the positive cop-
ing strategy and in a negative correlation with the negative
coping one. Further, the self-critic factor is in a striking positive
correlation with the negative coping strategy (Wang, 2001;
Zheng, Hao, & Hou et al., 2008; Dan, 2009). Meanwhile, the
coping strategy is in a striking correlation with all the dimen-
sions of degree of life satisfaction. The more frequently an
individual employs coping strategies as problem solving and
help seeking, the higher his or her well being will be. On the
contrary, the more frequently an individual employs the coping
strategies as escaping, bad temper and abreaction, the lower his
or her well being will become. This shows that the coping
strategy plays a role in prediction for the subjective wellbeing
(Rim, 1993; Wang & Ding, 2003; Yang & Shi, 2004). Accord-
ingly, the positive coping strategy is in a positive correlation
with the subjective well being, and the negative coping one is in
a negative correlation with the subjective well being. Funda-
mentally, the cultivation of positive coping strategy leads to the
promotion of well being; however, the coping strategies as
self-accusation and escaping hinder the promotion of well being
(Ren & Ye, 2006; Qiu, Zhang, & Yao, 2007; Qiu, 2009).
To sum up, the past studies were made on the direct relations
between self-concept, subjective well being and coping styles
from the perspective of two parties. And they lack analysis of
the role of mediation of the two. Do coping styles as a media-
tion variant play their role in the relation between the self-
*Corresponding author.
T. M. ZHOU ET AL.
concept and subjective well being? For this consideration, the
study has brought the adolescents’ coping styles into the rela-
tion between self-concept and subjective well being and exam-
ines the self-concept’s influence on the subjective well being.
In addition, it probes into the shifting mechanism from self-
concept to the subjective well being. If the supposition that
coping strategies play an intermediary role between the self-
concept and the subjective well being is proved, this may serve
as a piece of evidence for the promotion of adolescents’ well
being and their health education.
The paper has the following hypotheses: cultural factors may
exert influence on adolescents’ self-concepts, coping styles and
their subjective well being. Coping styles play the mediation
role between the adolescents’ self-concepts and subjective well
being of Han, Qiang and Yi.
Method
Participants
Participants have been drawn after layering. One middle
school has been chosen from Liangshan Prefecture in which Yi
people assemble, Beichuan County, Mianyang, in which Qiang
people mainly live, Ziyang City and Neijiang City respectively.
And 18 classes have been chosen randomly from grade 7 to
grade 12 in these schools. To them 900 questionnaires have
been handed out, among which 895 have been taken back. Ex-
cept those incomplete ones, 867 are valid, among which 442 are
of Han nationality and 231 are of Qiang nationality, 193 are of
Yi nationality; 352 are of boys and 515 are of girls; 300 are of
city students and 565 are of rural students. There are 122, 148,
134, 139, 232 and 91 students investigated from grade 7 to
grade 12 respectively. And their ages vary from 11 to 19 (15.6
± 1.6).
Research Materials
Self-Concept Scale: Tennessee Self-Concept Scale was de-
vised by American psychologist H. F. Wiliams and revised as
the 3rd edition by a Taiwanese Lin Bangjie, which contains 70
items (Lin, 1980). This scale includes ten aspects as two di-
mensions of self-concept and comprehensive ones, of which
structural dimension involves identity, self satisfaction and self
behavior, content dimension has physical self, moral self, psy-
chological self, family self and social self, total includes self
score and self criticism. The higher the first nine aspects score,
the more positive the self-concept becomes, and the higher
score self criticism gets, the more negative the self-concept will
be. The relevant study (Fan, 2002) indicates Cronbach’s is 0.87
and the Spearman-Brown’s split half reliability is 0.97. This
study divides self-concept into two types: the positive one and
the negative one. The former includes physical self, moral self,
psychological self, family self and social self while the latter
involves self criticism. The Cronbach’s of the scale is 0.90 and
the Spearman-Brown’s split half reliability is 0.88.
Coping Style Questionnaire: The simplified coping question-
naire (Wang, Wang, & Ma, 1999) (SCSQ) has been employed
for evaluation. The questionnaire is made up of two dimensions:
positive coping style and negative coping style, 20 items alto-
gether. The positive coping style ranges from items 1 to 12,
which mainly reflects its main features. And the negative cop-
ing style is from items 13 to 20. They mainly show the features
of negative coping style. Moreover, they have relatively high
reliability and validity. The Cronbach’s α of positive coping
style and that of negative coping style are 0.75 and 0.76 respec-
tively.
Subjective Well Being Scale: This study adopts China Multi-
dimensional Life Satisfaction Scale for adolescent (CMSLSS)
devised by Zhang, X. G. (Zhang, He, & Zheng, 2004) after
Huebner’s Multidimensional Life Satisfaction Scale for Ado-
lescent (Huebner, 1994) and Bradburn’s Affect Scale (Wang,
Wang, & Ma, 1999). And CMSLSS employs 7-rank system of
scoring, the lowest score of each item is 1, the highest is 7. The
higher the score is, the higher the degree of life satisfaction will
be. The Cronbach’s α of this scale is 0.85. Further, there are 10
yes-no questions in Affect Scale, of which 5 are for describing
the positive emotion and the other 5 for describing the negative
emotion. The answer “yes” for the positive emotion question is
scored 1, and the answer “no” scored 0. And the answer “yes”
for the negative emotion question is scored 0, and the answer
“no” scored 1.
These materials are confined to the people over 12.
Procedure and Data Analysis
Using stratified cluster sampling method and anonymous test
by class, we regained questionnaires at once after test. Before
test, the examiners directed students how to rightly fill the
forms under the instructions. After students had understood
rules fully, the test began. The head teacher of each class acted
as examiner and was trained in advance.
In our study, data was processed and analyzed by SPSS 13.0
and AMOS 7.0 for Windows.
Results
A Comparison of Self-Concepts, Coping Styles and
Subjective Well Being among Adolescents of Han,
Qiang and Yi Na ti onalities
The self-concept, coping style and subjective well being of
adolescents are of sharp difference among nationalities. The
SLD analysis on covariance reveals (Table 1) that in terms of
self-concept the scores of positive self-concept from the high to
low follow the order of Han, Yi and Qiang. In addition, the
average score of positive self-concept of Han and Yi adoles-
cents is strikingly higher than that of Qiang adolescents. And
the average score of negative self-concept of Yi adolescents is
noticeably lower than that of Han and Qiang adolescents. The
average scores of life satisfaction and negative emotion are
higher than those of Han and Qiang adolescents.
A Relevant Analysis on Self-Concept, Coping Style
and Subjective Well Being
Table 2 shows that the adolescents’ positive self-concept is
in positive correlation with various dimensions of positive cop-
ing style and subjective well being, but in negative correlation
with negative coping style. And their negative self-concept is in
positive correlation with their negative coping styles, but in
negative correlation with degree life satisfaction and negative
emotion. The various dimensions of subjective well being are in
positive correlation, but in negative correlation with negative
coping style.
Copyright © 2012 SciRes. 137
T. M. ZHOU ET AL.
Copyright © 2012 SciRes.
138
The Intermediary Function of Coping Style between
Self-Concept and Subjective Well Being
In the examination of the influence of the predictable varia-
ble on the dependent variable, if the predictable variable exerts
influence on the dependent variable through variable M, M will
be called mediated variable. The relationships among three va-
riables need to be studied in testing of the intermediary effect or
function. Supposing that the predictable variable is in striking
correlation with the dependent variable, and it is also in striking
correlation with the mediated variable, if the correlation or
regression coefficient between the predictable variable and
dependent variable decreases when the mediated variable is
added, people will believe that the intermediary function is ob-
vious. When the regression coefficient lowers to 0, this will be
called complete intermediary function (Xin, Guo, & Chi, 2007).
The statistics in Table 2 show that the intermediary function
can be tested. Meanwhile, we have constructed the model
without mediation as a competitive one according to some re-
levant theories. And through the comparison between fit in-
dexes, we made attempts to find which model fits better with
the real data. The difference between the model without media-
tion and the one with it lies in whether the influence of the ado-
lescents’ self-concepts on their subjective well being is through
the mediation of the coping styles.
The Table 3 shows that the various indexes of the model
with mediation exceed the critical value and are better than
their counterparts of the one with the mediation. This shows
that the fitting effect of the model with mediation is good, that
is, the coping styles play the mediation role between the ado-
lescents’ self-concepts and their well being.
In order to know the role the coping style plays in the rela-
tion between self-concept and subjective well being, the author
first centralizes various dimensions of self-concept, coping
style and subjective well being and then gives them a regression
analysis. In the first step, he has examined predictable role both
positive and negative self-concepts play on various dimensions
of subjective well being. In the second step, he has tested the
predictable function self-concept has exerted on coping style as
mediated variable (the predictable functions of positive and
negative self-concept on positive coping styles are respectively
(β = 0.47, P < 0.001; β = 0.10, P < 0.05). The predictable func-
tions of positive and negative self-concept on negative coping
styles are respectively (β = –0.24, β = 0.39, P < 0.001). In the
third step, the author takes degree of life satisfaction of subject-
Table 1.
Scores of self-concepts, coping styles and subjective well being among adolescents of Han, Qiang and Yi nationalities.
Scale Han Yi Qiang F Pair Comparison (P < 0.05)
(N = 442) (N = 231) (N = 193) ①② ②③ ①③
Pos Self Con 3.68 ± 0.39 3.62 ± 0.36 3.52 ± 0.38 9.62*** > >
Neg Self Con 3.24 ± 0.63 2.85 ± 0.64 3.17 ± 0.58 24.36*** > >
Pos Coping Style 1.89 ± 0.44 1.93 ± 0.42 1.86 ± 0.43 1.19
Neg Coping Style 1.35 ± 0.57 1.28 ± 0.49 1.50 ± 0.53 8.84*** > >
Life Sat 4.50 ± 0.69 4.77 ± 1.73 4.49 ± 0.61 5.30** > >
Pos Emo 2.86 ± 0.97 2.74 ± 1.02 2.81 ± 0.99 0.87
Neg Emo 3.02 ± 1.43 3.49 ± 1.34 3.04 ± 1.44 7.92*** > >
Note: *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, Pos = positive, Con = concept, Neg = negative, Sat = satisfaction, Emo = emotion.
Table 2.
Correlation among self-concept, coping style and subjective well being.
Pos Self Con Neg Self Con Pos Coping S. Neg Coping S. Life Sat Pos Emo Neg Emo
Pos Self Con 1
Neg Self Con –0.14** 1
Pos Coping S. 0.42** 0.01 1
Neg Coping S. –0.29** 0.35** 0.04 1
Life Sat 0.50** –0.21** 0.34** –0.18** 1
Pos Emo 0.23** 0.07* 0.17** 0.04 0.23** 1 1
Neg Emo 0.34** –0.34** 0.21** –0.24** 0.36** 0.13
Note: S. = Style.
Table 3.
Models of coping styles’ mediation role and their fit indexes.
Mode l χ2 df NFI IFI CFI RMSEA
Model 1 (without mediation) 33.25 3 0.891 0.900 0.895 0.108
Model 2 (mediation) 69.77 8 0.914 0.906 0.904 0.090
T. M. ZHOU ET AL.
tive well being and positive and negative emotion as dependent
variable and puts self-concept and coping style into equation.
Figure 1 and Table 4 and Table 5 can show that positive
self-concept exerts a positive influence on subjective well being
and negative self-concept has a negative influence on subjective
well being (except positive emotion). Furthermore, both posi-
tive and negative coping styles partly play an intermediary role
between self-concept and subjective well being. Thus the hy-
pothesis has been brought to truth. The proportions of in-
ter-mediary function of positive coping style between positive
self-concept and degree of life satisfaction, positive emotion
and negative emotion, and between negative self-concept and
positive emotion are respectively 3.8%, 29%, 20%, 9.1%; the
proportions of intermediary function of negative coping style
between negative self-concept and positive emotion, positive
self-concept and negative emotion are respectively 18% and
7%.
Discussion
Nationalities’ Influence on Adolescents’ Self-Concept,
Coping Style and Subjective Well Being
All statistics of this study show that the ethnic cultural factors
exert great influence on adolescents’ self-concepts, coping styles
and subjective well being. And scores of various dimen-
sions of adolescents’ self-concepts, coping styles and subjective
well being are different with different nationalities. In addition,
such differences are quite striking. This conclusion supports the
hypothesis that there are differences of self concepts (Hu, 2000;
Mu, 2000; Zhou, Gao, & Liu, 2005), coping styles (Zhou, 2009)
and subjective well being (Ren & Ye, 2006; Zhu, Miao, & Chen,
2008; Gu & Luo, 2009) between cultures. This may be brought
about by the combination of different cultures, social standards,
values, social economic status, family cultivation styles, peers’
attitudes and schooling styles of different nationalities. This
combination has become the social background of self evaluation
of self-concept, coping style and subjective well being.
And China is a country with many nationalities. When all the
other nationalities are under the influence of the Han culture,
they still keep their own unique cultures which bring deep in-
fluence not only on their external behaviors and life styles but
on changes of their knowledge and skill, behavioral tendency,
self-concepts and both physical and mental health.
The differences of self-concepts among Han, Qiang and Yi
people in Sichuan, China may be related to the following fac-
tors. Firstly, these people live in different environments and
they have different religious beliefs and languages. Both Qiang
and Yi are the two old nationalities on plateau. They usually
live in the rugged environment like high mountains and river
valley. This leads to their low productive force for a very long
- 0.24**
-0.35**
0.24 **
0.19**
0.16**
0.47** 0.21**
0.26**
0.30**
-0.15**
0.11**
0.38*
0.38**
- 0.10*
-0.24**
- 0.12**
Neg coping
style
self
Neg self
Pos self
Positive
emeemotions
life satisfaction
SWB
Pos coping
style
Negative
emoti ons
Figure 1.
Model of part of mediated function of coping style between self-concept and subjective well being. Notes: 1) All numerical values in the model are
standardized path coefficient. 2) The absolute value of t of each path is between 2.96 - 12.86.
Copyright © 2012 SciRes. 139
T. M. ZHOU ET AL.
Table 4.
Intermediary function of positive coping style.
Dep Var Co of Pre Func of Pos (m1) and
Neg Self (m2) without Coping S. β
Co of Pre Func of
Pos Coping S. β
Co of Pre Func of Pos (m1) and
Neg Self (m2) with Pos Coping S. β
Life Sat m1 = 0.26***, m2 = –0.15*** 0.19*** m1 = 0.25***, m2 = –0.15***
Pos Emo m1 = 0.24***, m2 = 0.11** 0.16*** m1 = 0.17***, m2 = 0.10***
Neg Emo m1 = 0.30***, m2 = –0.35*** 0.21*** m1 = 0.24**, m2 = –0.37***
Note: Dep = dependent, Var = variable, Co = coefficient, Pre = predictable, Func = function.
Table 5.
Intermediary function of negative coping style.
Dep Var Co of Pre Func of Pos (m1) and
Neg Self (m2) without Coping S. β
Co of Pre Func of
Neg Coping S. β
Co of Pre Func of Pos (m1) and
Neg Self (m2) with Neg Coping S. β
Life Sat m1 = 0.26***, m2 = –0.15*** –0.12** m1 = 0.26***, m2 = –0.15***
Pos Emo m1 = 0.24***, m2 = 0.11** 0.03 m1 = 0.25***, m2 = 0.09*
Neg Emo m1 = 0.30***, m2 = –0.35*** –0.24* m1 = 0.28***, m2 = –0.35***
time. They believe in animism and natural things on which they
think there is certain secret power that can determines people’s
fate. People are not allowed to have either words or behavior
that may violate their will. The human’s power is so weak be-
fore nature. These help to account for the fact that the scores of
Qiang and Yi adolescents in self-concepts are unexceptionally
lower than those of Han adolescents. On the other hand, both
Qiang and Yi people are the old nationalities on plateau and
they are characterized by farming and animal husbandry culture.
Although Yi people worship Nature and their ancestors, in the
long period of fighting with nature they have come to know more
about it as well as causes of some natural phenomena. Accord-
ingly, they no longer pin their hope on nature and gradually
they are aware of their own powers (Qiu, 2006). For instance,
the Yi family system is a particular social one which plays an
important role in maintaining families’ private properties, stabi-
lizing whole families, establishing public morality, and choos-
ing one’s spouse (Yang, 2008). However, limited by the lever
of productive force, their ability to know about nature is still
rather weak. Comparatively, the Qiang people’s belief is even
more primitive and their conventions are characterized by the
thick divine color. They worship gods of the heaven, the earth,
the mountains, their villages and all the other gods in the nature.
Thus, they have no fixed idol which is fused in the fete rites
which mostly standardize people’s behaviors, as forest protec-
tion, punishment of stealth, family and marriage harmonization,
road and bridge building, and guesting principle (Zhao & Luo,
2010). Both the two nationalities have their own languages. The
Yi people speak the Nang language, but the Qiang people do
not have the language specific to their own and they speak
Chinese. WANG Mingke holds that to the most Qiang people
the biggest dilemma for self identity is the language problem.
The Qiang people call themselves “Erma” which is defined as
the people who can speak the same language. However, the
smaller dialects of different valleys are often not intelligible
(Zhao & Luo, 2010). “In the past, the Qiang history was written
not in their own language but in other languages. The modern
construction of Qiang culture and history somewhat improves
such self identity, but such multi-culture tends to be exempli-
fied and it even tends to disappear” (Zhao & Luo, 2010).
Therefore, what is mentioned above makes the Qiang adolescents
lack sufficient knowledge of positive self-concept.
Secondly, the family economic pressure exerts great influ-
ence on adolescents’ psychological development. The pressure
the adolescents of minority nationalities (in rural areas in par-
ticular) face is much greater than that of Han adolescents. There
are several reasons. The first reason is that the lag-behind of
fundamental education of minority nationalities leads to the
universal low level of these people’s education, and hence leads
to their low income and social status. The second lies in the fact
that the privileged birth policy permits the people of minority
nationalities to give two or three birth to children. The exces-
sive economic pressure does not good to parents’ health and
their marriage, so parents may easily adopt some improper
educational styles which are prone to children’s problems of
self development (Zhang & Zhao, 2007). Comparatively,
though the Han culture has long been around the Confucianism
as its core values which highly stresses collectivism and social
value, in the current society with the deepened reform and
opening and the flood-in of Western thoughts, while maintain-
ing the traditional collectivism oriented values, the Han ado-
lescents have gradually begun to think of their self value. Ac-
cordingly, their positive evaluation of self-concept is the high-
est among the three nationalities.
The Relationship between Self-Concept and
Subjective Well Being of Han, Yi and Qiang and
Partial Intermediary Role of Coping Style
In this study, the subjective well being is in striking positive
correlation with positive self-concept, but in striking negative
correlation with negative self-concept. This is in accordance
with conclusions of some relevant studies (Fredrickson, 1998;
Li, 2006; Zhang & Xu, 2007; Ling, Zhu, & Liu, 2008; Wang,
2008; Wu, 2008). But then, how is the role of self-concept in
subjective well being played? The statistic analysis shows that
the variable coping style has partial intermediary role between
self-concept and subjective well being, among which the inter-
mediary role of positive coping style between self-concept and
subjective well being reaches 29%. The role of adolescents’
self-concept in subjective well being is to promote or restrain
subjective well being either through direct ways or indirect ways.
The Fredrickson’s extended construction theory can be used
Copyright © 2012 SciRes.
140
T. M. ZHOU ET AL.
to account for the function of self-concept on subjective well
being and the role of coping style between self-concept and
subjective well being. Fredrickson (1998) holds that various
specific positive emotions, like joy, interest, satisfaction, pride
and love, can extend people’s instant cognitive ability, con-
struct and promote people’s personal resources (as to promote
people’s physical power and intelligence, psychological ad-
justing ability and social coordination), and improve people’s
subjective well being. Psychologists believe self-concept is the
core of personality and it will exert influence on one’s psy-
chology and behavior as a core driving force. Further, it can
provide help either psychological or environmental to streng-
then people’s self identity and hence enjoy themselves, promote
their self esteem and confidence. The individual with a good
self-concept can have relatively high positive emotion and low
negative emotion (Li, Gan, & Han, 2010). The high and much
positive emotion is helpful for an individual to strengthen the
social link with others. When needed, such social resources
may become the source of social support and they can play a
role in promoting one’s subjective well being. And positive
self-concept can extend one’s horizon, stimulate one’s creative
thinking, thus the individual can better cope with pressure and
confusion. Due to differences in depth of thoughts, flexibility
and creativity of thinking, and social coping resources, indi-
viduals with different self-concepts may adopt different coping
styles when facing pressure and difficulties. The adolescents
with positive self-concept tend more to treat pressure as a chal-
lenge and they will seek for support both emotional and finan-
cial, positive causes and coping styles and plans. In this way,
they keep high subjective well being. In contrast, the adoles-
cents with negative self-concept usually undervalue and blame
themselves. They think they are better than no one, so they take
negative coping style, which makes them live in anxiety, low
mood and helplessness. This will inevitably influences their
subjective well being.
There is an interesting finding in this study. Positive self-
concept and positive coping style are in striking correlation
with negative emotion, so is negative self-concept with positive
emotion. The safe explanation for such a finding lies in the
reason that individuals with positive self-concept are more con-
fident. As a result, they have the courage to face challenge and
apply themselves to the exploration of the unknown world
which may bring success as well as failures. This in turn in-
creases the chances for individuals to experience the negative
emotion. On the contrary, for lack of confidence, individuals
with negative self-concept may take escape or neglect mecha-
nism in order to get psychological balance. This reduces indi-
viduals’ chances of experiencing confusion, frustration and
failures, which means the increase of chances for individuals to
experience positive emotion.
On the whole, the choice of coping styles is an important
way by which adolescents’ self-concept influence their sub-
jective well being. This finding further deepens the knowledge
and understanding of relationship between adolescents’ self-
concept and subjective well being. Meanwhile, it implies that
people may improve and promote their subjective well being
through the purposeful guidance and encouragement of indi-
viduals to use positive coping style efficiently.
Conclusion
There exist differences of adolescents’ self-concepts, coping
styles and subjective well being among nationalities. The aver-
age scores of positive self-concept of Han and Yi adolescents
are noticeably higher than those of Qiang adolescents. The
scores of negative self-concept of Yi adolescents are strikingly
lower than those of Han and Qiang adolescents. The scores of
negative coping style of Han and Yi adolescents are lower than
those of Qiang adolescents. The degree of life satisfaction and
negative emotion of Yi adolescents are higher than Han and
Qiang adolescents.
Self-concept and coping style are in striking correlation with
subjective well being. Positive self-concept is in negative cor-
relation with subjective well being. And negative self-concept
has obvious negative influence on subjective well being. Cop-
ing style plays a partial intermediary role in the influence of
self-concept on subjective well being.
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