Academic Stress as A Health Measure and Its Relationship to Patterns of Emotion in Collectivist and Individualist Cultures: Similarities and Differences

Abstract

The present study investigates academic stress in two different cultures, the Iranian as a collectivist culture, and the Swedish as an individualist culture. A total of 616 university students (312 Iranian and 304 Swedish) participated in the study. The results show that Swedish students experience more academic stress than Iranian students. Academic stress was found to be related to difficulties in and outside class, and managing work, family and leisure activities. There was no cultural difference in terms of interacting with the university administration, teachers and friends. There was a gender difference, with females experiencing more academic stress than males, an effect that was more pronounced in Sweden than in Iran. Subset analyses (92 Swedes and 100 Iranians) revealed a tendency of Iranian students to balance positive and negative emotions in comparison to students from Sweden. Partial correlations showed that negative affect was the sole affect to significantly correlate with academic stress in Sweden. Negative and positive affect correlated in unison with academic stress in Iran. These results are discussed on an individualist-collectivist dimension. Cultural differences between the educational systems in the two countries may also explain the differing emotion/affect-health relationships.

Class Culture and the Academic Stress of Digital Natives Generations

“…The results show that CI had a negative and significant effect on DNG AS, meaning that the higher the collectivism, AS will decrease. This is in line with research by Kormi-Nouri et al (2015), which shows higher academic stress amongst Swedish students, whose culture tends to be individualistic compared to that of Iranian students, which is more collectivist. Collectivist culture is more socially oriented; that is, it prioritizes the interests of groups, while individualists tend to see themselves as individuals who are able to do things without being dependent on others (Hofstede & Bond, 1984;Jobson, & O'Kearney, 2009).…”

“…Peer acceptance tends to influence student behaviour (Prilanita & Sukirno 2017). Students feel happy and comfortable discussing with friends when completing assignments, rather than doing it themselves (Kormi-Nouri et al, 2015). The DNG prefers teamwork learning (Prensky, 2001).…”

“…CI shows individual discretion in making choices about the importance of group and individual interests (Hofstede & Bond, 1984). The results of the study of Kormi-Nouri, MacDonald, Farahani, Trost, & Sokri (2015) indicate that there are differences in academic stress (AS) between students and cultures that tend towards individualism and collectivism; students whose culture tends to be individualist show a higher AS than those whose culture is more collectivist. FM shows whether there are differences in the views or thoughts of men and women (Hofstede & Bond, 1984).…”

“…The culture affects the mental and emotional condition of women. Some studies even have found that women experience a higher AS than men (Kormi-Nouri et al, 2015;McDaniel, 2010;Pekkarinen, 2008). UAI is an individual's attitude to facing change (Hofstede & Bond, 1984).…”

Differences in Happiness-Increasing Strategies Between and Within Affective Profiles

“…Importantly, individuals were allocated in profiles using a person-centered method or a bottom-up procedure that sequentially groups individuals by their similarity on positive affect and negative affect (i.e., pattern and individual focused) [40,43,56]. In this respect cluster analytic methods are data-driven and create affective profiles groups that are relative to each other.…”