COVID-19 Stressors and Aggression among Chinese College Students: The Mediation Role of Coping Strategies

Although college students experienced excessive stressors (COVID-19 disease and negative COVID-19 news) during the COVID-19 pandemic, few studies have been aimed at coping strategies used by college students to deal with stress caused by the pandemic. Coping strategies are efforts to deal with anxiety in the face of a perceived threat or stress. Aggression is harmful social interaction with the intention of inflicting damage or harm upon another individual. In the present study, we aimed to examine the direct effect of stressors resulting from the pandemic on college students’ aggression, as well as the indirect effect via their coping strategies. Through a cross-sectional survey of 601 Chinese college students (M-age = 20.28), we tested the proposed framework. We first found that information stressors of COVID-19 ranked highest among the four stressors of the pandemic. Results also indicated that college students’ stressors of COVID-19 were directly and positively associated with their aggressive behavior. For the indirect effect, college students would adopt both adaptive coping strategies (self-help strategy) and maladaptive coping strategies (avoidance strategy and self-punishment strategy) with the stressors of COVID-19. Furthermore, adaptive coping strategy (approach strategy) was negatively related to their aggression, whereas maladaptive coping strategy (avoidance strategy and self-punishment strategy) was positively related to their aggressive behavior. The present research extends the general strain theory in the COVID-19 context. Practical implications are also discussed.