Mc. Zea et al., SOCIAL SUPPORT AND PSYCHOSOCIAL COMPETENCE - EXPLAINING THE ADAPTATION TO COLLEGE OF ETHNICALLY DIVERSE STUDENTS, American journal of community psychology, 23(4), 1995, pp. 509-531
Examined relationships among social support, psychosocial competence,
and adaptation to college in a sample of 357 African American Asian Am
erican, Latino, and white college students. Social support and active
coping were significant predictors of adaptation to college, whereas l
ocus of control was not. However, there was an interaction between eth
nicity and locus of control indicating that although internal African
American, Latino, and white students had higher adaptation-to-college
scores than external students, the opposite was true for Asian America
ns. The relationships among social support, internality, and active co
ping were also explored. Satisfaction with social support and internal
ity were positively related to active coping, but locus of control and
social support were unrelated Active coping and internality were sign
ificantly related to each other for all groups except for African Amer
icans. Although most relationships were the same across groups, these
findings call attention to the role of ethnicity as a moderator of col
lege adjustment processes.