An international exploratory investigation of students’ perceptions of stressful life events: Results from Greece, Cyprus, and the United States

Abstract

The present exploratory study examined student perceptions of the stressfulness and incidence of life events across three countries—Greece, Cyprus and the United States. The participants include 378 6th-grade elementary school students. Students in the United States completed the ‘What Do You Think?’ questionnaire and its translated Greek form ‘Esy Ti Pistevis?’ in Greece and Cyprus to share their perceptions of stressful life events. Marked cross-cultural similarities were revealed regarding the life events students reported as most stressful. Events reported as most stressful included those that signified personal and irreversible loss, such as losing a parent, going blind, and academic retention. In addition, events characterized as socially taboo (e.g. being caught in theft, wetting in class), and poor academic performance (e.g. getting a poor report card) were also stressful for most children cross-culturally. These same events were the least common experienced among the students surveyed in the study. The results and limitations of this study are discussed.