Self-efficacy of Malay children in coping with everyday stress

The study explored self-efficacy and coping efforts of Malaysian Malay children (ages 7, 9, and 13) facing common daily stressors. Malay children showed age-, situation-, and culture-associated trends in self-efficacy and coping efforts. Interpersonal conflicts evoked higher frequencies of self-directed coping; academic difficulties, event-directed coping. With age, event-directed coping increased; self-directed coping decreased and then increased; relinquished control was stable but rare; and stress-elicited responses decreased. The construct of self-efficacy was reoperationalized into three components: general (across domains), external (over external events), and internal self-efficacy (over onea??s self). Reflecting cultural emphases on modesty and accommodation to external realities, Malay children reported moderate general, external, and internal self-efficacy. In some situations and age groups, self-efficacya??particularly internal self-efficacya??predicted coping styles/strategies. Across situations, both internal and external self-efficacy decreased with age but internal self-efficacy was higher than external self-efficacy. Finally, in some situations and age groups, religiosity could predict religious coping.

Author dc:creator

• NORZARINA BINTI MOHD ZAHARIM

• stress-and-coping, internal self-efficacy, external self-efficacy, religious coping, age trend, Malay culture