The Diversity in Action seminar series continued Wednesday with a panel on “The Role of Culture in Coping with Life’s Challenges: An Act-in-Context.”
The hour-long session featured professor Puncky Heppner, who discussed his research with coping across cultures around the world.
According to an article published by Heppner in 2008, “(Psychologists) have made assumptions, overlooked or ignored the cultural context in applied problem solving and coping.”
Heppner’s research focuses on the affects of culture on coping strategies. From 1980-2000, he said most coping researched focused on American subjects.
“Ninety-five percent of American research focuses on 5 percent of the world’s population,” he said.
Heppner’s goal was to look at coping strategies as they are influenced by cultural differences around the world.
Heppner began studying coping strategies in 1982, when he published his first of four “inventories” on the subject. The problem-solving inventory, or PSI, focuses on how belief in oneself helps to develop the capacity to solve problems.
“Based on many, many experiences, we start developing conceptions of ourselves,” Heppner said during the lecture.
Heppner continued his research in 1993. He started to focus on his second inventory, the problem-focused style of coping. This was developed in order to measure the effectiveness of a coping strategy.
In 1998, he developed a problem-resolution outcome scale, or PROS. This inventory focused on the effectiveness of counseling and its effects on coping.
“Because clients have stressful problems that they have been unable to resolve on their own,” Heppner said. “Thus, the most basic counseling outcome is whether a client has made progress in resolving their problems.”
After the development of his third inventory, Heppner decided to study the affects of culture on coping. He said the results were surprising.
“We found constructs that were very different than we had found in any of the coping inventories in the (U.S.),” he said.
Heppner, along with an American colleague and several Asian professors, studied coping styles in Asian culture. He found that many of the values in Asian culture, particularly the value of the family, played a big role in coping styles, as opposed to the American individualist view.
Heppner said studies that ignore the impact of culture can lead to biased research.
“Constructs based solely on the majority culture do not tell the whole story within the U.S. and around the globe because they omit the cultural values for other populations,” he said.
From his research, Heppner said his experiences studying other cultures opened eyes to a broader range of worldviews.
“The way I view the world is in large part because of the social construct I grew up with,” he said.
Heppner’s lecture was part of a larger series of seminars focused on diversity research in psychology.
“Our intention is to highlight the work that our faculty members are doing,” said Noor Azizan-Gardner, Interim Chief Diversity Officer Director of Diversity Programming and Professional Development for the Chancellor’s Diversity Initiative.
According to the Chancellor’s Diversity Initiative’s website, “This series of research-based seminars is designed to inform and engage scholars, students and practitioners of diversity-related research at Mizzou.”
The Diversity in Action seminars are part of the Chancellor’s Diversity Initiative.