Testing of a Dual Process Model to Resolve the Socioeconomic Health Disparities: A Tale of Two Asian Countries

Cecilia Cheng, Fanny Cheng, Saloni Atal and Sarlito Sarwono
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Cecilia Cheng: Social and Health Psychology Laboratory, Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, China
Fanny Cheng: Social and Health Psychology Laboratory, Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, China
Saloni Atal: Department of Psychology, Cambridge University, Downing St., Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK
Sarlito Sarwono: Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Indonesia, Kota Depok, Jawa Barat 16424, Indonesia

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 2, 1-15

Abstract: A wealth of past studies documented that individuals of lower socioeconomic status (SES) are more susceptible to both acute and chronic life stress than those of higher SES, but some recent evidence documents that not all individuals from the lower SES group experience immense stress. The present study was grounded in theories of coping and psychological adjustment, and a dual process model was formulated to address some resolved issues regarding socioeconomic disparities in health. For a robust test of the proposed dual process model, data were collected from two Asian countries—Hong Kong and Indonesia—with different socioeconomic heritage and conditions. Consistent with the predictions of our model, the present findings revealed that coping flexibility was a psychological mechanism underlying the positive association between social capital and health for the lower SES group, whereas active coping was a psychological mechanism underlying this positive association for the higher SES group. These patterns of results were largely replicable in both Asian samples, providing robust empirical support for the proposed dual process model.

Keywords: coping; disparity; health; flexibility; social capital; socioeconomic status (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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