Date of Award

2011

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

The current study examined the additive and interactive effects of racial socialization on internalizing and externalizing behaviors. One hundred and thirty-six youth (mean age = 11.49, SD = 1.71) in fourth through eighth grade and parents of children these ages (n = 150) from 3 three locations of a community based family support agency reported on the youth's internalizing and externalizing behaviors, parental behavior, and racial socialization experiences. Correlational analyses were conducted to determine the relationship between study variables. Consistent with hypotheses, supportive parenting was associated with fewer maladaptive outcomes. Racial pride messages showed a trend level association to outcomes. Regression analyses were conducted to determine if racial socialization messages added unique variance to outcomes above supportive parenting. Results indicated that racial socialization showed additive effects on internalizing behaviors when examined with supportive parenting. Regression analyses were also conducted to determine if increased racial socialization messages moderated the association of supportive parenting to internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Results indicated that racial pride messages interacted with supportive parenting to predict both internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Results are discussed in regards to the implications of additive and integrative models of racial socialization and supportive parenting in promoting adaptive functioning among low-income African-American youth.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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