The thesis contains a theoretical generalization and a new solution to the problem of cross-cultural research of coping with stress. A weighted impact of ethnic and religious identities of students and young university teachers on their coping behavior in a stressful situation is determined. It is shown that the involvement of specific internal and external resources in people with different ethno-religious identities determines certain peculiarities of coping behavior, which, in turn, are manifestations of the need development. The proposition that the need is a biosocial platform, which is materialized through incarnation in man and is the bearer of the genetically translated social experience of ancestors revealing the wholeness of the human being, logically theorized the hypothesis of impact of ethnic and religious identities on coping. It is noted that the relatively "inherited" ethnic and religious identification in most people explains such a need manifestation as the actualization of ethno-religious potentials in certain patterns of behavior in the course of human life. Coping is shown to be the result of a subjective assessment of macrosocial resources and the ability of a particular culture to provide with and transfer adequate coping resources.
Based on the analysis of current approaches and theories of coping strategies systematization, the difference between psychological defences and coping strategies was theoretically investigated. It is substantiated that coping can be considered as a way and a form of deployment of the need, due to the proven reflectiveness of coping behavior, in contrast to unconscious defences.
The design and implementation of the cross-cultural empirical research were substantiated and carried out. The intergroup differences related to the orientations of ethno-religious identity and coping with a stressful situation in the samples of students and teachers with different ethnic identities (Egyptians and Ukrainians) and different religious identities (Muslims and Christians) were studied.
The results obtained through the methods that ‒ according to the concept of this empirical study ‒ measure certain manifestations of ethno-religious identity and aspects of coping behaviour were analysed and interpreted. It was found out that the ethnic identity of the subjects is a more important predictor of certain aspects of the orientations of human identity, the general purpose in life and religiosity.
Besides, it is revealed that the enthnic component of ethnoreligious identity correlates with the coping behavior of students and young teachers more significantly. A hierarchical model of coping behavior (adapted from Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2016) was used to interpret the results of the cross-cultural study of coping.It is determined that the coping behavior of (1) Egyptians and (2) Ukrainians is subject to all three adaptive processes of the hierarchical model of coping behavior substantiated in this study. In addition, Egyptians and Ukrainians used identical coping families in their coping patterns, such as "Problem Solving," "Finding Information," "Finding Support," and "Adapting." On the other hand, Egyptians and Ukrainians preferred slightly different coping strategies that belonged to these coping families, and demonstrated different degrees of manifestation of these strategies. It is concluded that depending on the orientations of ethnoreligious identity, a specific pattern of adaptive processes and families (subscales) of coping strategies with their root functions will be formed, which determines a specific pattern of coping with a certain stressful situation. The following pattern of coping behavior was found in (1) the Egyptians: "Finding Support" ‒ "Problem Solving" ‒ "Adaptation" ‒ "Finding Information"; in (2) Ukrainians: "Finding Information" ‒ "Adaptation" ‒ "Finding Support" ‒ "Problem Solving".
Based on the specificity of religiosity formation in the group of Egyptians of both religious identities (Muslims and Christians), in which formal religious education and upbringing begin in childhood and continue into adulthood, in contrast to a more spontaneous process in Ukrainians, it is concluded that the dominant religious coping is learnt by Egyptians. This is the evidence that coping strategies can and should be taught.
The scientific novelty of this research encompasses implementation of the hierarchical model of coping behavior in a crosscultural research. Thus, an attempt is made to outline ways to unify research on coping behavior employing widely used in a cross-cultural context methods. The psychometric qualities of the Ukrainian version of the dispositional “COPE” questionnaire were validated. The adaptation and validation of the Ukrainian dispositional “COPE” questionnaire revealed its fairly high internal consistency and reliability.
