Predicting Psychological Adjustment of Immigrant Adolescents Based on Coping Skills, Social Distance and Sociocultural Adjustment

Psychological adjustment is a complex process aimed at coping with the widespread changes in a new environment. The study aimed to predict psychological adjustment of immigrant adolescents based on coping skills, social distance and sociocultural adjustment. The methodology was descriptive-correlational. The participants of this study included 96 adolescents of 12-18 years old (48 male and 48 female) who were enrolled in Bay View School in Ontario, Canada in 2014. Adjustment Scale Inventory, Social Distance Scale, Sociocultural Adjustment Inventory, and Coping Skills Inventory were used for collecting data. The data were analyzed using multivariate regression analysis and Pearson’s correlation coefficient. The findings of this study showed that coping skills and social distance, accompanied by sociocultural Adjustment, had a meaningful positive relationship with the psychological Adjustment of immigrant adolescents through the mediating role of immigrants’ sociocultural Adjustment; and problem-oriented coping skills and social distance, considering the level of immigrants’ sociocultural Adjustment could predict psychological Adjustment in immigrant adolescents. It can be concluded that adolescents with more coping skills have a lower perception of social distance between the original and destination countries and have had more sociocultural Adjustment, and  have been more adjusted with destination country.