Managing Anger

SUMMARY

African-American male risk and resilience is viewed as two sides of the same coin in this study that investigates the stability of cluster profiles of racial socialization beliefs. Responses of 208 urban African-American adolescent males from three different samples were used to empirically derive factors of spiritual/ religious coping, extended family caring, cultural pride reinforcement, and racial awareness, which were then submitted to exploratory and confirmatory cluster analyses. Three reliable clusters were found across the samples and were identified as protective, proactive, and adaptive racial socialization beliefs. One-way ANOVAs were conducted on each sample separately and then combined with various psychosocial variables including anger expression, depression, religiosity, calamity fears, and kinship social support. The results supported the hypothesis that young males who hold an adaptive or proactive racial socialization identity tend to demonstrate more prosocial adjustment outcomes. The implications for prevention and community services are suggested.