Coping with intergenerational family conflict: Comparison of Asian American, Hispanic, and European American college students

Using a stress-coping framework, the authors examined indirect and direct c oping strategies as potential mediators in the relationship between interge nerational family conflict and psychological distress in Asian American, Hi spanic, and European American college students. Asian American college stud ents reported the highest likelihood of family conflict. Students from all cultural groups also used direct coping slightly more often than they did i ndirect coping. Only indirect coping mediated the effect of family conflict on distress for Asian Americans and European Americans, but it did so in t he opposite direction than hypothesized. For these two cultural groups, ind irect coping fully accounted for the variance shared between family conflic t and psychological distress. For Hispanics, indirect coping partially medi ated the effect of family conflict on psychological distress.