Depression among Black adolescents navigating racism: The roles of bias preparation, cultural socialization, and self-control.

Abstract

Parents of Black adolescents face the task of preparing their children to navigate, surmount, and survive systemic racism, a practice known as racial socialization. Research linking preparing youth for racial bias and youth mental health, however, are equivocal. We investigate the influence of preparation for bias on Black adolescents' depressive symptoms and test the hypothesis that racial socialization involving preparation for bias is only effective when parents also provide cultural socialization designed to promote racial pride. This combination promotes a sense of self-control in adolescents that we expect to carry forward and support their mental health. Hypotheses were tested with 502 African American families with 10th grade youth. Consistent with our hypotheses, preparation for bias promoted increased self-control and reduced depressive symptoms only when parents also provided high levels of cultural socialization. We discuss our results and suggest that effective racial socialization is a complex multifaceted process. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).