The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of Strong Black Woman attitudes on how African American women perceive and cope with stress. The study included 100 Black female faculty, staff, and students from five universities in the eastern region of the United States including a large, public, research university; a small, private, religious-affiliated university; and three public, historically Black universities. The following research questions guided the study: a) What are the respondents’ levels of Strong Black Woman attitudes, perceived stress, and culture-specific coping? b) How does perception of stress predict Strong Black Woman attitudes? c) How does perception of stress predict the use of culture-specific forms of coping? d) How do Strong Black Woman attitudes mediate the relationship between perception of stress and culture-specific coping? These questions were explored through quantitative research analysis using an Information Questionnaire to collect data regarding demographic background, the Strong Black Woman Cultural Construct Scale (Hamin, 2003), the Perceived Stress Scale – 10 item (Cohen, Kamarck, Mermelstein,1983; Cohen & Williamson,1988), and the Africultural Coping Systems Inventory (Utsey, Adams, and Bolden, 2000). Simple linear regression revealed that Strong Black Woman attitudes of Caretaking, and Affect Regulation, as well as the Cognitive-Emotional Debriefing form of culture-specific coping were associated with higher levels of stress. Finally, multiple regression analysis revealed that Strong Black Woman attitudes did not have a mediating effect on participants’ level of perceived stress and their coping behaviors used in response to stress. Implications of the findings suggest a need to develop an empirical, theoretical, and clinical understanding of the impact of Strong Black Woman attitudes on women’s wellness. / Ph. D.

Strength for African American women and its psychological ramifications are being newly conceptualized and explored empirically in psychological research. The Strong Black Woman Attitudes Scale, (Thompson, 2003) was created to empirically test a three factor theoretical model: self reliance, affect regulation, and caretaking as a reliable culturally relevant coping mechanism for African American women. The primary aim of this study is to explore if cultural coping (SBW) moderates the relationship between depression and suicide in African American women. Other aims include, replicating the factor structure of the SBWAS with a community sample, and examining relationships between the SBW, racial identity, traditional coping, and depression. The Strong Black Woman Attitude Scale (SBWAS) was used to measure cultural coping, and the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WOCQ) was used to measure traditional coping. Racial regard and centrality subscales from the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity (MIBI) measured racial identity and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Beck Suicide Scale (BSS) measured depression and suicide respectively. Results showed significant moderations for the total SBW score and the affect regulation subscale. Additionally, racial identity was positively associated with cultural coping, and cultural coping was negatively associated with traditional coping. Depression was positively related to the SBW and suicide. The three factor model was also upheld. The results of this study support the notion that strength for African American women can have detrimental psychological effects on women utilizing this coping style.

Strength for African American women and its psychological ramifications are being newly conceptualized and explored empirically in psychological research. The Strong Black Woman Attitudes Scale, (Thompson, 2003) was created to empirically test a three factor theoretical model: self reliance, affect regulation, and caretaking as a reliable culturally relevant coping mechanism for African American women. The primary aim of this study is to explore if cultural coping (SBW) moderates the relationship between depression and suicide in African American women. Other aims include, replicating the factor structure of the SBWAS with a community sample, and examining relationships between the SBW, racial identity, traditional coping, and depression. The Strong Black Woman Attitude Scale (SBWAS) was used to measure cultural coping, and the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WOCQ) was used to measure traditional coping. Racial regard and centrality subscales from the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity (MIBI) measured racial identity and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Beck Suicide Scale (BSS) measured depression and suicide respectively. Results showed significant moderations for the total SBW score and the affect regulation subscale. Additionally, racial identity was positively associated with cultural coping, and cultural coping was negatively associated with traditional coping. Depression was positively related to the SBW and suicide. The three factor model was also upheld. The results of this study support the notion that strength for African American women can have detrimental psychological effects on women utilizing this coping style.

Black mothers socialize their daughters to embody the strong Black woman (SBW) schema to help them navigate gendered racist oppression. While research indicates that ascribing to the SBW schema offers Black women psychosocial benefits (e.g., increased self-esteem), identifying with the SBW schema has been linked to several negative psychological outcomes (e.g., anxiety, depression, and stress). Considering the evidenced negative implications associated with identifying with the SBW schema on Black women's mental health, the current study had three aims: (1) investigate the socialization messages Black women received about strong Black womanhood, (2) explore the extent to which they identified with these messages, and (3) assess the implications of this socialization on Black women's functioning. To address these aims researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 Black college women (Mage = 20.09; SD = 1.04). For this manuscript, we extracted data pertaining to aim one and analyzed this data using a consensual qualitative research (CQR) data approach. Findings revealed messages Black women were given about strong Black womanhood (i.e., know your worth, depend on yourself, overcome societal barriers, little to no messages about strong Black womanhood, and additional responses) and illuminated behaviors mothers modeled that exemplified strength (i.e., self-sufficient, preserving, caretaking, and additional responses). Findings derived from this study have the potential to inform clinical intervention with Black women and, more specifically, provide insight as to how clinicians may work with Black women to mitigate the impact of the SBW schema on their mental health.

No description available.

The strong Black woman ideal is a long-established image in U.S. society pressuring Black women to maintain a facade of strength at all times. The strength ideal is internalized as an integral aspect of their identity, so much so that Black women socialize each other to habituate behaviors reflecting strength. The Strong Black Woman Collective Theory (SBWC; Davis, 2015a) posits that Black women re-appropriate the strong Black woman image and use certain communication behaviors to affirm strength in each other. By exhibiting these behaviors, they delineate a safe space to promote solidarity within the group and confront oppressors collectively. This new theory needs to be corroborated with empirical data to examine how the theoretical tenets are actualized in a real-world communication context. To this end, the present study conducts a partial test of the SBWC theory by observing Black women friend groups engage in supportive discussions about racial discrimination. This is an ideal context to test the SBWC theory because the friends are gathering together as a group of same race-gendered persons; they are discussing the wrongdoing of an identifiable external hostility that they are motivated to retreat from and confront; and strength gets reified as a form of support during the conversation. The study advances a path model to represent the empirical associations among four key variables: strength regulation, group identification and solidarity, verbal confrontation, and relational quality with the out-group member. Fifty-two Black women friends groups (three in each) aged 18-89 years were sampled but only the data from the support seeker were used for analyses (n = 52). All data were collected in the home of one of the participants as a way to observe the supportive conversation in a safe, naturalistic environment. Structural Equation Modeling was used to test the Strong Black Woman Collective path model. The findings revealed that strength regulation was positively associated with group identification/solidarity, such that women felt more connected to the group when strength was regulated and reinforced. Also verbal derogation was inversely associated with relational satisfaction with the White woman aggressor. That is, support seekers reported lower levels of relational satisfaction with the White woman after she was verbally derogated during the discussion. The results also showed that strength regulation was positively correlated with verbal derogation, even though the relationship was approaching significance. Finally, verbal derogation had a very weak and nonsignificant association with group identification/solidarity. Findings from this study demonstrate that strength is functional in the context of Black women’s communication spaces and has important implications for their relationships with in-group affiliates and outsiders. The conclusion of this dissertation discusses the implications of these findings in relation to future articulations of the SBWC theory, extent research in Feminist Studies and Communication, and Black women’s day-to-day encounters with discrimination.

Few studies have been conducted to determine relationships between maternal childhood sexual abuse (CSA) history and parenting practices. Furthermore, no studies have attempted to understand how cultural coping methods dynamically impact the relationship between maternal CSA history and parenting outcomes. The purpose of this study is to understand if maternal coping mediates the relation between maternal CSA history and mother-daughter relational outcomes in a sample of African American mothers. The Strong Black Woman (SBW) Cultural Coping Scale, which consists of caretaking, affect regulation, and self-reliance factors, was used to represent maternal coping, and the Parent-Child Relationship Questionnaire (PCRQ) was used to assess warmth, personal relationship, possessiveness, and power assertion. Results showed that maternal CSA history was significantly related to SBW Cultural Coping total scores in the positive direction (i.e., mothers with CSA history reported higher scores). Mediation and indirect effects analyses revealed maternal CSA history was associated with mother-daughter possessiveness and power assertion through SBW Cultural Coping total scores. Additional analyses revealed a significant relation between maternal CSA history and subscales of the SBW, specifically caretaking and self-reliance. The meditational analyses, utilizing SBW subscale scores, revealed significant relations between maternal CSA and maternal warmth in the inverse direction via SBW caretaking, CSA and possessiveness in the positive direction via SBW self-reliance, and CSA and power assertion in the positive direction via both SBW caretaking and self-reliance factors. The results of this study highlight that specific types of trauma (i.e., CSA) can have significant implications for familial functioning within minority populations based on culturally-driven coping.

Abstract Eighty percent of all black women are overweight or obese which can lead to greatly increased morbidity and mortality, increasing healthcare costs and loss of healthy years of life. While multiple factors may contribute to obesity in black women, the cultural persona of the Strong Black Woman (SBW), an ideology that promotes unflagging toughness and denial of self-needs, may be the basis for behaviors that contribute to steady state obesity in this group. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between the SBW persona, depression, and emotional eating. Two predominately black churches in Florida were approached concerning this research. A total of sixty-six women consented to participate during their monthly women's fellowship meeting. Each woman was asked to complete a packet of three instruments. The Strong Black Woman Cultural Construct Scale, a 22-item instrument was scored on a 5-point Likert-like scale with possible scores on the inventory ranging from 22 to 110. The mean score for this inventory was high (M=74.62; SD= 8.700. The SBWCCS has 3 subscales, measuring Affect Regulation (7 items), Caretaking (8 items), and Self-Reliance (7 items). Affect Regulation scores may range from 7 to 35. The mean score for Affect Regulation was moderately high (M=21.35; SD = 4.39). Caretaking scores could range from 8 to 40 points. The mean score for Caretaking was moderately high (M=25.11; SD = 4.47). Self-Reliance scores could range from 7 to 35, and had the highest mean score (M= 28.17; SD = 3.31). The Emotional Eating scale, a 25 item inventory rated on a five-point Likert-like scale, has a score range of 25 to 125 points. The mean score for Emotional Eating was low (M=49.36; SD = 19.42). The Center for Epidemiological Study-Depression Scale, a 20-item inventory has scores that range from 0-60 points. The mean score for this inventory was low (M=14.06; SD = 9.05). Pearson Product Moment Correlations were run to determine if there were any relationships among the three variables and the subscales. No relationships were found between SBW and Depression, or between SBW and Emotional Eating. However the relationship between Depression and Emotional Eating was statistically significant (r=0 .27, p<.05). No relationships were found between the three subscales and emotional eating, nor was there a relationship between depression and caretaking or depression and self-reliance. However, the relationship between Depression and Affect Regulation was statistically significant (r=0.28, p<.05). The findings regarding the relationships between SBW and depression, and also SBW and Emotional Eating were inconsistent with the current literature, suggesting that either response bias or some other source of bias interfered with the relationships. However, the significant relationships between Depression and Emotional Eating, along with Depression and Affect Regulation, were consistent with previous studies. Further research is needed to determine if there is response bias due to questions on the instruments being at odds with strong identification with the SBW persona and also to determine levels of depression in this population. A more complete understanding of these relationships is needed before culturally specific interventions for psychosocial factors supporting obesity in black women may be developed.

In the U.S., Black mothers experience fetal and infant mortality at alarming rates when compared to White and Latina mothers (Gregory, Drake, & Martin, 2018). The intent of this study was to examine perinatal loss among Black American women and to expand understanding of how the Strong Black Woman (SBW) ideology influences bereavement. Data were gathered from (N=109) Black American bereaved mothers. It was predicted that endorsement of differing aspects of the SBW would moderate the relationship between perinatal grief and psychosocial outcomes (i.e., depression and post-traumatic growth). Regression analyses, alongside a bootstrapping procedure via PROCESS (Hayes, 2017), were used to evaluate the moderation models. Results yielded a model of perinatal bereavement among Black American mothers. In particular, reliance on spirituality moderated the relationship between perinatal grief and depression, while the obligation to manifest strength moderated the relation between perinatal grief and posttraumatic growth (PTG). Neither moderated moderation model was significant. The model provided significant implications for clinical practice and intervention.

Depression is a global health concern and among the top two causes of disability and disease. African-Americans often seek help from the Black church, but Pentecostal churches may fail to provide effective support due to doctrinal beliefs. African-American women with depression struggle due to psychosocial implications of the diagnosis. This research study used social constructionism and the biopsychosocial model of health to explore the lived experiences of African- American women suffering from self-reported depression while attending Pentecostal churches in the Northeast United States. Fourteen women, ages 20 to 76, participated in this qualitative, phenomenological study. Data obtained from the semistructured, face-to-face interviewswas analyzed with Moustakas' modified Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen method. Findings included the following main themes: the Pentecostal church was ineffective in dealing with depression, participants drew comfort from personal faith in God, participants emoted through their behavior, most felt they had to wear a mask, traditional supports were used to deal with depression, strength was expected of them, they were blamed by the church for their depression, traumatic experiences were related to depression, and psychological harm was suffered because of Pentecostal church membership. Social change implications included the personal liberation of research participants who shared their experiences. Other implications include the potential for clergy to adopt more supportive practices for their members based on these findings and for mental health professionals to develop treatment options that are more culturally attuned and sensitive.