COPING STRATEGIES OF ETHNIC SUBJECTS IN DIFFERENT CULTURAL AND ECOLOGICAL CONDITIONS OF LIVING

Abstract

The problem of studying coping strategies of ethnic subjects (representatives of the Udmurt people) in different cultural and ecological conditions of living (rural / urban environment) is posed in the article. Study participants are 70 Udmurts aged 35 to 45 who live on the Udmurt Republic territory. There are 35 rural people (female - 81.4 %, male - 18.6 %) and 35 urban people (female - 79.2 %, male - 20.8 %). The standardized method of psychological diagnostics by E. Haim (Russian version) is used to identify preferred coping strategies. The authors use descriptive statistics, difference reliability analysis method (Mann-Whitney U test) as methods of mathematical statistics. The hypothesis of the differences in the choice of ethnic subject’s coping strategies in connection with different cultural and ecological conditions of life was confirmed by the results of the empirical research. Rural Udmurts use “active avoidance”, “self-setting”, “search for meaning”, “emotional explosion”, “maintaining composure” and “religiosity”; urban Udmurts use “retreat” and “problem analysis”. Both groups also use similar coping strategies (“optimism”, “distraction”, “recourse”). These choices are explained by the reliance of the Udmurts on cultural values, which are manifested in ethnic characteristics and open up to representatives of both groups as additional adaptive resources that allow them to effectively escape from the impact of stressful living conditions.