Content uploaded by Riana Elyse Anderson
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Riana Elyse Anderson on Jan 22, 2019
Content may be subject to copyright.
RECASTing Racial Stress and Trauma: Theorizing the Healing Potential of
Racial Socialization in Families
Riana Elyse Anderson
University of Michigan
Howard C. Stevenson
University of Pennsylvania
For youth and adults of color, prolonged exposure to racial discrimination may result in debili-
tating psychological, behavioral, and health outcomes. Research has suggested that race-based
traumatic stress can manifest from direct and vicarious discriminatory racial encounters (DREs)
that impact individuals during and after an event. To help their children prepare for and
prevent the deleterious consequences of DREs, many parents of color utilize racial socialization
(RS), or communication about racialized experiences. Although RS research has illuminated
associations between RS and youth well-being indicators (i.e., psychosocial, physiological,
academic, and identity-related), findings have mainly focused on RS frequency and endorsement
in retrospective accounts and not on how RS is transmitted and received, used during in-the-
moment encounters, or applied to reduce racial stress and trauma through clinical processes. This
article explores how systemic and interpersonal DREs require literate, active, and bidirectional RS
to repair from race-based traumatic stress often overlooked by traditional stress and coping models
and clinical services. A novel theory (Racial Encounter Coping Appraisal and Socialization
Theory [RECAST]), wherein RS moderates the relationship between racial stress and self-efficacy
in a path to coping and well-being, is advanced. Greater RS competency is proposed as achievable
through intentional and mindful practice. Given heightened awareness to DREs plaguing youth,
better understanding of how RS processes and skills development can help youth and parents heal
from the effects of past, current, and future racial trauma is important. A description of proposed
measures and RECAST’s use within trauma-focused clinical practices and interventions for
family led healing is also provided.
Keywords: racial socialization, African American families, RECAST, race-based traumatic
stress, clinical healing
When my mother says get home safe
her voice is the last coin she owns,
and everything is a wishing well.
She is praying to every god she can find
that a cop does not
make a hashtag out of my body. (Johnson, 2016)
Racial discrimination— or the unfair and prejudicial treat-
ment based on racial demographic characteristics (Ameri-
can Psychological Association [APA], 2013)—remains a
powerful and harmful reality in the United States (APA,
2013). Within a month of the 2016 presidential election,
nine out of 10 educators who replied to a voluntary survey
reported witnessing emotional and behavioral changes in
students, with over 1,000 incidents attributed to discrimina-
tion based on race and immigration (Southern Poverty Law
Center, 2016). In particular, empirical findings demon-
strated that the overwhelming majority (i.e., 90%) of Afri-
can American adults and children report discriminatory
racial encounters (DREs; Helms, Nicolas, & Green, 2012;
Pachter, Bernstein, Szalacha, & García Coll, 2010). Al-
Editor’s note. This article is part of a special issue, “Racial Trauma:
Theory, Research, and Healing,” published in the January 2019 issue of
American Psychologist. Lillian Comas-Díaz, Gordon Nagayama Hall, and
Helen A. Neville served as guest editors with Anne E. Kazak as advisory
editor.
Authors’ note. Riana Elyse Anderson, School of Public Health, University of
Michigan; Howard C. Stevenson, Graduate School of Education, University of
Pennsylvania.
This study was supported by a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship
and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Leaders Award. The
authors are incredibly grateful for the editorial and supportive efforts of Shawn
Jones, Jacqueline Mattis, and Monique McKenny. We are also thankful for the
statistical clarity provided by Michael Rovine and Moin Sayed. Finally, the
authors would like to acknowledge Jeannine Skinner for your loving support
of this text – may you continue running through the heavens.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Riana E.
Anderson, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, 3822 SPH I, 1415
Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. E-mail: rianae@umich.edu
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
American Psychologist
© 2019 American Psychological Association 2019, Vol. 74, No. 1, 63–75
0003-066X/19/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000392
63
though many explicit forms of racial discrimination are now
illegal, blatant and subtle DREs that negatively impact
youth of color are propagated through various systems and
quickly amplified through the Internet (Tynes, Giang, Wil-
liams, & Thompson, 2008). These DREs, which can occur
at interpersonal, institutional, and systemic levels (Harrell,
2000), include suspensions and expulsions within schools
(Skiba & Williams, 2014), racial profiling (A. Thomas &
Blackmon, 2015), and killings by police and authority fig-
ures (Buehler, 2017), to name but a few. It is important to
note that families and mental health professionals struggle
to protect and affirm children of color exposed to these
events (see Fischer & Shaw, 1999), particularly given that
racial stress reactions often accompany DREs and, if left
unaddressed, may lead to trauma that can have debilitating
effects on health and well-being (Carter, 2007).
In light of the negative stress effects of recently increas-
ing racial hostility in the American social climate, scholars
have called for culturally grounded theories, healing prac-
tices, and interventions that effectively capture how people
cope with and reduce the symptoms of racially stressful
encounters (Williams & Medlock, 2017). Families have
used racial socialization (RS)— or communication about
racial dynamics—as an approach to help youth cope with
DREs and develop healthy racial identities (Hughes et al.,
2006). In this article, we advance the Racial Encounter
Coping Appraisal Socialization Theory (RECAST) as a
theoretical enhancement to the current literature on RS by
proposing that the relationship between racial stress and
coping is explained by racial coping self-efficacy, which is
moderated by RS competency. We propose that, as a mod-
erator, RS must promote a form of literacy that is more
user-friendly, planned, and responsive in managing DREs.
Through literacy, the definition of RS is broadened to include
the explicit teaching and implementation of racially specific
emotional regulation and coping skills that can be observed,
trained through a lens of competency, and evaluated in specific
interventions. We also point to and call for burgeoning efforts
(e.g., an intervention and measure) that use RECAST’s refram-
ing of RS to respectively better combat and understand race-
based traumatic stress for youth and parents.
Race-Based Traumatic Stress
Harrell (2000) defined racism-related stress as “race-
related transactions between individuals or groups and their
environment that emerge from the dynamics of racism and
that are perceived to tax or exceed existing individual and
collective resources or threaten well-being” (p. 44). Such
race-based traumatic stress can be due to direct (or first-
hand) and vicarious (or secondhand) DREs (Carter et al.,
2013;Jernigan & Daniel, 2011). Research has demonstrated
a link between race-related stress and anxiety disorders
(Soto, Dawson-Andoh, & Belue, 2011), cardiovascular re-
activity (Williams & Leavell, 2012), poor immunological
functioning (Sawyer, Major, Casad, Townsend, & Mendes,
2012), and various facets of sleep disturbance (Adam et al.,
2015), all symptoms that can impact daily functioning.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(5th ed.) criteria assert that people must directly experience or
witness an event to be diagnosed with posttraumatic stress
disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Despite
many DREs not meeting these criteria, individuals may expe-
rience debilitating psychological symptoms from distant racial
encounters. To be sure, studies have found effects from both
direct (e.g., rumination, anger, overidentification, emotional
suppression, or avoidance; Hoggard, Byrd, & Sellers, 2012;
Soto et al., 2011;Terrell, Miller, Foster, & Watkins, 2006) and
vicarious (e.g., anxiety, depression; Tynes et al., 2008) DREs.
Whether experienced directly or vicariously, DREs present
significant challenges to youth of color and their parents given
that they are constantly exposed to the insidious stressor (e.g.,
Comas-Díaz, 2016). As such, parents may feel underprepared
to address in-the-moment DREs. Active responses to racial
threat are physiologically exhausting for targets of discrimina-
tion (Richeson & Trawalter, 2005) and, given anxiety-based
avoidant responses to overwhelming and threatening racial
encounters (Gudykunst, 1995), require advanced understand-
ing and practice to navigate.
Racial Socialization as a Buffer to Race-Based
Traumatic Stress
Raising children to effectively cope with the stress inher-
ent in peer, schooling, neighborhood, and virtual ecologies
is a basic competence demand for parenting accomplished
Riana Elyse
Anderson
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
64 ANDERSON AND STEVENSON
through socialization (Kliewer, Fearnow, & Miller, 1996).
Racial socialization, furthermore, has been conceptualized
as the verbal and nonverbal racial communication between
families and youth about racialized experiences (Lesane-
Brown, 2006). Although some discrepancies exist within
the RS literature over the past four decades, research has
generally found positive associations between parents’ fre-
quent use of RS and a host of youth well-being indicators
(i.e., psychosocial, physiological, academic, identity;
Hughes et al., 2006). RS studies have typically focused on
the extent to which the frequency of a single type or com-
bination of RS message(s) predict(s) psychosocial well-
being (e.g., externalizing behavior; Rodriguez, McKay, &
Bannon, 2008), academic outcomes (e.g., educational aspi-
ration; Wang & Hughley, 2012), self-esteem (Murry,
Berkel, Brody, Miller, & Chen, 2009), and/or racial identity
(e.g., public regard; McGill, Hughes, Alicea, & Way, 2012;
Stevenson & Arrington, 2009). Although the histories of
racial and ethnic immigration, discrimination, and political
engagement in the United States represent different social-
ization themes for different racial and ethnic groups (Huynh
& Fuligni, 2008;Seol, Yoo, Lee, Park, & Kyeong, 2016),
this article illustrates experiences of racial discrimination
and socialization for African American families given the
preponderance of literature detailing the detrimental impact
of discrimination on and protective qualities of racial so-
cialization in this population.
Optimally, the greatest benefit to youth’s psychological
well-being would be the eradication of racism. As it cur-
rently stands, however, RS has been largely identified as a
protective factor against persistent and deleterious effects of
racial discrimination (Spencer, Dupree, & Hartmann, 1997)
wherein parents provide their children with verbal and/or
behavioral messages of four primary content types: cultural
socialization (cultural pride), preparation for bias (discrim-
inatory preparation), promotion of mistrust (wariness re-
garding interracial encounters), and egalitarianism⫺silence
about race (mainstream orientation or racial avoidance; see
Hughes et al., 2006). Parents provide strategies in which
they often use both protective (e.g., preparation for bias) and
affirmational (e.g., cultural socialization) RS to navigate
potentially challenging racial terrain (Harris-Britt, Valrie,
Kurtz-Costes, & Rowley, 2007).
Most parents, however, use preparation for bias reac-
tively, or, for example, after discovering that their child has
been treated unfairly at school because of race (White-
Johnson, Ford, & Sellers, 2010) or following a highly pub-
licized racial assault (e.g., the stalking and fatal shooting of
Trayvon Martin; A. Thomas & Blackmon, 2015). During
these conversations, parents often communicate fears for
their children’s safety (Coard, Foy-Watson, Zimmer, &
Wallace, 2007), information about the history of domestic
racial terrorism (Thornhill, 2016), a recounting of personal
DREs (Crouter, Baril, Davis, & McHale, 2008), and/or
information about general and racial coping strategies (Ste-
venson, Davis, & Abdul-Kabir, 2001). Preemptive conver-
sations, however, may afford youth greater psychological
protection relative to reactive approaches (Derlan &
Umaña-Taylor, 2015;D. E. Thomas, Coard, Stevenson,
Bentley, & Zamel, 2009).
In addition to these discussions, youth are also powerfully
affected by their parents’ behaviors (e.g., protests). In silent
or physical practices, RS can be said to be occurring, and
children can make meaning of these subtle or direct com-
munications (Caughy, Nettles, Lima, & 2011). What is less
known is whether parents explain why they choose to pro-
test or ignore, so that youth can be more accurate in under-
standing why parents find these communications important.
Ostensibly, the more youth know explicitly why parents use
RS and for what purpose, the more they can effectively use
what they learn to combat systemic, domestic, and interper-
sonal DREs in developmentally appropriate ways. Although
theories have conceptualized in what context socializing
African American youth may be necessary (e.g., triple quan-
dary theory; Boykin & Toms, 1985), current theories are
sorely lacking with respect to how the transmission of RS
reduces youth’s stress in DREs and buffers against erosion
to their well-being outcomes (e.g., process model of ethnic-
racial socialization; Yasui, 2015).
Racial Socialization From a Legacy Approach
Extant literature is replete with the potential mental health
and academic benefits associated with frequent delivery of
RS (Neblett, Philip, Cogburn, & Sellers, 2006;Reynolds &
Gonzales-Backen, 2017); however, prior research has been
Howard C.
Stevenson
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
65
RECASTING RACIAL TRAUMA WITH RACIAL SOCIALIZATION
based almost exclusively on recall of the frequency and
content of racial messages that parents communicate and
youth receive within a given time span (Hughes et al., 2006;
Lesane-Brown, 2006). Stevenson (2014, p. 118) noted that
this approach to RS emphasizes a “legacy” form of com-
munication that focuses on the subtypes as beliefs, attitudes,
and messages that are ideological and historical. Such an
approach assumes that declarative and static parental com-
munication leads not only to youth’s awareness and knowl-
edge about race and racial dynamics but also to effective
coping behaviors. However, this notion that parental com-
munication leads directly to knowledge and coping efficacy
underappreciates the bidirectional, reciprocal nature of RS
between youth and parents (e.g., Hughes & Chen, 1999) and
the complexity of the emotional, process-oriented coping
strategies needed to resolve past, in-the-moment, and future
racial conflicts (Stevenson, 2017). For example, parents
must deconstruct history and personally relevant events,
make meaning of them, and discern both what content to
communicate to their children and how they will commu-
nicate that content in the service of helping their children
navigate racial dynamics. In turn, children must decipher,
make meaning of, and apply the content of the verbal and
behavioral messages that they receive from their parents.
For families to collectively tackle the traumatic effects of
DREs, greater understanding of the mechanisms involved in
the meaning making of RS transmission is necessary. A
legacy approach to RS has been mostly aspirational and
informational by emphasizing the importance of knowledge
of racial dynamics, strengths, and challenges in promoting
racial coping but has not targeted the skills necessary to
bring about the coping behaviors parents hope will protect
children from DREs’ stressful and traumatic effects.
Theorizing Racial Socialization Through a
Literacy Approach
Literacy refers to the ability to read and write, which
requires an understanding of a particular language as well as
how to decode the communication tools or text of that
language (Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1995). Racial liter-
acy is the ability to accurately read (e.g., decode, interpret,
appraise), recast (e.g., reappraise or rewrite stereotyped
narratives), and resolve (e.g., engage in healthy decision
making) the language of racially stressful encounters (Ste-
venson, 2014). It is posited that DREs represent a narrative
about race relations in this country: DREs are scripts sig-
nifying multidimensional, omnipresent, predictable, and
emotionally stressful interactions (Worrell, Vandiver,
Schaefer, Cross, & Fhagen-Smith, 2006). It is asserted that
RS must become a literacy-focused strategy that involves
the practiced encoding, decoding, interpretation, and trans-
mission of intellectual, emotional, and behavioral beliefs
and skills regarding these matters. As a form of literacy, RS
functions in this context to enhance youth’s and adults’
ability to read and recognize DREs, protect and affirm their
progressive development of individual and collective racial
coping self-efficacy, stimulate effective reappraisals of ra-
cially stressful encounters as workable, and promote suc-
cessful engagement in and resolution of conflict-laden racial
interactions. To successfully navigate these encounters,
families must translate these scripts, investigate how con-
gruent they are with their own narratives of humanity, and
jettison dehumanizing meanings. Given this assertion, how
must one modify RS to be able to evaluate its effectiveness
in developing youth behaviors that reduce the stress and
trauma from DREs?
Transitioning From a Legacy to
Literacy Approach
A practical RS leads to an individual or group’s being
able to accurately, quickly, and healthfully read, recast, and
resolve the emotional text and subcodes of a racial situation
and the actors involved. Whereas legacy RS endeavors to
describe the state of race relations and offers general max-
ims as advice for coping with race-related realities (e.g., “As
a Black person, you have to work twice as hard to be
considered half as good as Whites”), a literacy approach
focuses on youth’s ability to agentically read, rehearse,
recall, and successfully enact direct, anticipatory, and prac-
ticed approaches with caretakers in their efforts to navigate
DREs (e.g., “It can feel painful when someone is treating
you as racially inferior, but just remember it’s based on a
false myth of superiority and is meant to be destructive to
your definition of yourself, your family, your people, and
your culture, so you can choose any of the strategies we’ve
rehearsed to reject that inferiority”). A literacy approach to
RS investigates how competently and efficaciously parents
and youth can transmit and youth then execute coping
strategies for predictable distal or proximal DREs. Thus, a
literate perspective of RS centers on how prepared youth are
to see, speak to, emote about, remain mindful of, and
implement a variety of racially literate skills learned from
RS transmission with parents in the face of racially fraught
moments.
Racial Encounter Coping Appraisal and
Socialization Theory
Stevenson (2014) offered RECAST as a frame for con-
ceptualizing how youth and families anticipate, process, and
respond when confronted by racially stressful encounters.
RECAST is the racially specific complement to Lazarus and
Folkman’s transactional model of stress and coping (TMSC;
Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) by asserting that RS is a critical
factor in how individuals reduce the stress associated with
DREs. This conceptual frame also suggests that explicit and
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
66 ANDERSON AND STEVENSON
practiced RS improves one’s confidence and competence to
employ multiple conflict resolution options for improved
long-term well-being outcomes.
In the TMSC, a stressor is a demand requiring action to
reduce the imbalance in resources and demands. The model
attends to how stressors are appraised (e.g., threat, chal-
lenge, or insignificant), the extent to which individuals
believe that they have the capacity to control or manage the
stressor (e.g., coping self-efficacy), the nature of the indi-
vidual’s efforts to cope with the stressor (e.g., meaning-
based coping), and the extent to which employed coping
strategies yield desired results (e.g., positive or negative
outcomes; Provencher, 2007). Although several researchers
have situated racial discrimination in stress and coping
paradigms (Clark, Anderson, Clark, & Williams, 1999;Har-
rell, 2000;Major, Kaiser, O’Brien, & McCoy, 2007), how
this stress relates to RS has not yet been theorized. Further-
more, scholars have argued that the TMSC does not fully
appreciate dyadic stress and coping processes inherent in
familial environments (Bodenmann, 1997). Bodenmann
(1997) described an element of dyadic coping particularly
salient for RS, that is, that the supportive dyadic coping
from one family member to another (e.g., parent to child)
may inevitably serve as a reduction in parental stress, espe-
cially through a trauma-focused lens. As such, a racial stress
and coping theory requires youth’s attention to initial ap-
praisals of racialized events as threatening or challenging to
receive supportive dyadic coping from their parent(s). Like-
wise, parents must have skills and efficacious beliefs in
themselves to reduce their own stress prior to effectively
attending to their children via the transmission of supportive
coping strategies. Thus, RECAST integrates the dyadic and
racial components missing from the TMSC and utilizes RS
as a strengths-based protective factor.
Elements of RECAST
The developmentally flexible RECAST model (see Fig-
ure 1) asserts that coping with race-related stressors requires
a dynamic and cyclical process wherein events are per-
ceived and read with respect to their appraisal as DREs.
Pertaining to the TMSC, there are two types of appraisal:
primary appraisal refers to whether an event, in this case a
DRE, is a threat. Secondary appraisal refers to an assess-
ment of one’s coping resources available to match the
demands of the stressor. In RECAST, the identification of a
DRE as racial or not is important and is best understood as
occurring during primary appraisal processing at the mo-
ment of the DRE. For the sake of clarity in the description
of RECAST, we assume that the parent and child would
perceive the DRE as a racial threat, and thus the RS inter-
action or conversation would occur in light of the potential
threat. Moreover, the secondary appraisal process occurs at
evaluation of one’s self-efficacy or coping resources to
engage a DRE effectively. The relationship between DRE
stress and coping (reappraisal, decision-making, and reso-
lution) is believed to be mediated by parents’ and children’s
confidence and expectations of the outcome of coping ef-
fectively with DREs. In no previous work has racial coping
self-efficacy been posited to mediate the relationship be-
tween DRE stress and coping, where RS competency is
theorized to moderate the role of self-efficacy. Next, each
element of the model is elaborated upon.
Child RS
Stress
Parent RS
Stress
Racial
Socialization
Competency
-Skills
-Confidence
Discriminatory
Racial
Encounters
Racial Stress
-Appraisal
Racial Coping
-Reappraisal
-Decision-making
-Resolution
Racial Coping
Self-Efficacy
Outcomes
-Psychosocial
-Physiological
-Academic
-Identity
Figure 1. The moderating role of racial socialization in stress, self-efficacy, and coping processes through the
Racial Encounter Coping Appraisal and Socialization Theory (RECAST). RS ⫽racial socialization.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
67
RECASTING RACIAL TRAUMA WITH RACIAL SOCIALIZATION
Perceiving DREs and their stressfulness as racial is key to
becoming literate given that DREs can be seen accurately,
inaccurately, or not at all (Clark et al., 1999). One must have
knowledge that DREs are possible, can occur at multiple
levels, and are between various actors. RECAST asserts that
racial stress appraisal allows people to recognize that the
encounter is racial; to become aware that the encounter
creates in one’s self and others cognitive, emotional, and
physiological reactions; and to recognize that those reac-
tions can occur during and after the encounter. Assessing
the extent and intensity of these reactions is important in
determining if any potential threat is present for any given
DRE.
Racial coping self-efficacy is the belief or confidence
in one’s ability to resolve racially stressful encounters
and is foundational to the application of one’s intended
actions (e.g., Schwarzer & Renner, 2000). If coping
self-efficacy is what individuals believe they can manage
during racially stressful moments, then coping is what
they do to demonstrate that management. But what one
does and what one believes can be done are different
(e.g., Weisz, 1986). Thus, self-efficacy is central to re-
appraising an experience to confidently believe in its
manageability while one determines how to overcome it.
The focus on building racial coping self-efficacy is
through the use of cognitive-behavioral-based mindful-
ness (e.g., attentional self-regulation and orientation;
Bishop et al., 2004) and stress reduction during and after
DREs (e.g., Woods-Giscombé & Black, 2010). Racial
self-efficacy addresses the sense of helplessness during
DREs by improving one’s confidence and increasing the
availability of multiple decisions (Bandura, 1997).
Racial socialization competency— or how well families
are skilled and confidently prepared to engage in RS com-
munication—is a crucial element of RECAST. This is a key
difference between the legacy and literacy approaches: in-
stead of the attitudinal importance or frequency of RS
messages that are central to legacy RS, the focus of this
aspect of RECAST is on how well racially socialized coping
skills for DREs are understood, transmitted, received,
and/or implemented. A competency perspective to RS is
consistent with other literatures that assess the development
rather than solely the frequency of the skill (e.g., parent
training; Pisterman et al., 1992). Although the four subtypes
(e.g., cultural socialization) of RS are still relevant within
the competency perspective, RECAST argues that families
transmitting RS messages can develop an increased sense of
competence when skills and confidence are also considered
as components of RS (Anderson, Jones, & Stevenson,
2018).
Racial socialization stress is rarely discussed within the
literature; however, it can be rather stressful for parents to
talk to children about race (Bentley, Adams, & Author,
2009;Hamm & Coleman, 2001). Conversely, it may be
equally difficult for youth to solicit, correct, or receive
race-related communication from parents and other provid-
ers (Hughes & Johnson, 2001). Therefore, a key goal of
RECAST is to account for how well competent RS helps to
reduce the stress in racial communication. Personal (e.g.,
parental history of DRE coping) and contextual dimensions
of DRE complicate how the conversations are transmitted
between parent and child. Moreover, not all parents want to
talk to children about racial matters or see it as meaningful
to well-being and may be fearful of these conversations
(Hughes et al., 2006). Because it is stressful to engage in
racial discussions, both parents and children might approach
initiating and responding to these conversations with vary-
ing degrees of hesitation and reticence. For those parents
and youth who use emotion-focused rather than problem-
focused approaches to manage the stress of racial conver-
sation, they may be more prone to avoiding or not persisting
through progressive racial discussions. This avoidance
could undermine the level of competency in the delivery
and acquisition of RS literacy skills. As such, it is important
to determine how well parents have historically managed
their own stress appraisal, reappraisal of, and coping with
DREs. Additional considerations (e.g., parental delivery
based on life experiences; child reception and application
given age, sex, and comprehension ability) are also impor-
tant regarding RS stress levels.
Coping is defined as “the cognitive and behavioral efforts
made to master, tolerate, or reduce external and internal de-
mands and conflicts among them” (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980,
p. 223). Both adaptive and maladaptive coping (e.g., approach,
accommodation, self-help, avoidance, and self-punishment;
Zuckerman & Gagne, 2003) are at anyone’s disposal. The
latter two strategies represent maladaptive approaches that are
frequently utilized in stressful DREs (Clark et al., 1999). Given
that parents often socialize youth to cope with general stressors
explicitly (e.g., coping socialization), families would also need
to racially socialize themselves with adaptive racial coping
strategies specific to racial stressors (Anderson, Jones,
Anyiwo, McKenny, & Gaylord-Harden, 2018). Racial coping
is defined as learning to positively reappraise a DRE as less
threatening and make decisions during racial encounters that
are choices, not reactions; more problem-focused than emo-
tion-focused; and more likely to be healthy and productive to
one’s sense of self and management of the DREs. Although
research has found that greater RS frequency is associated with
racial identity centrality (Stevenson & Arrington, 2009)or
academic achievement (Hughes, Witherspoon, Rivas-Drake, &
West-Bey, 2009;Neblett et al., 2006), intermediate coping
variables may explain why these outcomes are present.
Through RECAST, it is posited that racial coping, including
reappraisal, decision-making, and resolution, predicts youth
well-being outcomes (Anderson, McKenny, Mitchell, Koku, &
Stevenson, 2018;Scott, 2003).
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
68 ANDERSON AND STEVENSON
Given that accurate appraisal of the encounter as racial
leads to assessing one’s ability to manage thoughts, behav-
iors, and emotional reactions (social cognitive theory; Ban-
dura, 1997), racial coping reappraisal refers to cognitive
strategies for reevaluating a situation to determine its threat
potential and manageability. In the same way a stressor
must be initially appraised as a threat, challenge, or insig-
nificant occurrence, reappraisal allows for an evaluation of
the stressor as “benign, beneficial, and/or meaningful” (Gar-
land, Gaylord, & Fredrickson, 2011, p. 60). It is akin to the
concept of benefit finding (Affleck & Tennen, 1996), which
refers to cognitive-behavioral coping strategies that enable
the individual to potentially appraise a difficult situation as
manageable (e.g., Fava, Rafanelli, Cazzaro, Conti, &
Grandi, 1998;Folkman & Moskowitz, 2000). Through re-
appraisal, the experiences of DREs become predictable,
modifiable, and illuminating of the limits and strengths of
one’s context and one’s abilities. Positive reappraisal, then,
is about empowerment, agency, and control in addressing a
stressor as a workable challenge rather than a paralyzing
threat or avoidant-laden insignificant event through a reex-
amination of internal and external resources (Garland et al.,
2011). As an empowerment strategy, coping reappraisal
also stands in contrast to the attenuation and habituation of
repeated exposure to stressful and traumatic DREs which
may lead to acceptance of and hopelessness regarding racial
conditions.
Although the anticipation of negative outcomes of DREs
can spiral toward psychological positions of paralysis and
uncertainty (Gudykunst, 1995,2005;Gudykunst & Shapiro,
1996), this anxiety can also be modified to activate effective
coping skills that lead to rewarding racial encounters (Ste-
venson, 2014). If anxiety can trigger threat or challenge,
then racial coping decision-making becomes a tool for
defining potential and multiple resolutions to the racial
encounter. Besides a benefit of positive reappraisal, having
multiple options and decisions reframes DREs and the ac-
tors as more predictable. This could explain why scripting,
rehearsal, and role-playing common racial moments using
different choice points can reduce the uncertainty that un-
dermines one’s confidence in decision-making (Avery,
Richeson, Hebl, & Ambady, 2009).
Resolution of racial stress involves individuals making
healthy decisions that are neither an under- nor an overre-
action during and after a DRE. For example, to appraise a
DRE as mild (e.g.,a4onascale of 1–10) when it is actually
experienced viscerally and physically as extreme (e.g., a 9)
would make resolution of the conflictual stress difficult. The
coping literature would suggest that the more successful
individuals are in accurately evaluating and resolving a
stressful DRE, the more positive their well-being outcomes
(Folkman, 2013). As such, options presented from RECAST
include youth’s engagement with the stressor or perpetrator
to the extent that psychological discomfort would be moved
away from their internalizing mechanisms to problem-
focused and assertive thoughts and behaviors (e.g., letters,
legal advocacy).
Outcomes from the aforementioned coping processes are
anticipated to be more predictable than are some of the
mixed findings inherent in current legacy approaches to RS
(see Hughes et al., 2006). Indeed, the frequent use of RS
does not consistently produce positive outcomes for youth
simply by virtue of its presence in one’s upbringing, social
networks, or learning environments. To best explain subse-
quent and long-term psychological, academic, identity, and
self-esteem outcomes, the field should conceptualize the
process-oriented nature of the relationship between DRE
stress, self-efficacy, coping, and RS for acquiring the ac-
companying skill sets necessary to competently navigate
encounters. Although RS is related to these outcomes, it is
posited to be through the mechanism of enhanced efficacy
and coping processes that provide the cognitive and behav-
ioral elements critical for youth comprehension and imple-
mentation. At the conclusion of a RECAST-informed feed-
back loop, parents and youth can evaluate to what extent
their response to a DRE has improved. If it is indeed better
than for other experiences they previously had, the out-
comes will help to inform stress, efficacy, RS competency,
and coping during the next set of racialized experiences.
As such, a testable set of hypotheses of this model in-
cludes the following:
Hypothesis 1: DRE stress will have a negative direct relation-
ship with racial coping.
Hypothesis 2: This relationship will be significantly reduced
or eliminated via racial self-efficacy.
Hypothesis 3: The role of the mediator will be moderated by
levels of RS competency. We expect that self-efficacy will be
enhanced for parents and youth who endorse high levels of RS
competency relative to those who endorse low levels of RS
competency.
Hypothesis 4: The moderated mediation of DRE stress, cop-
ing, self-efficacy, and RS competency will be predictive of
youth outcomes.
RECAST in the Real World
One of the more challenging duties for African American
parents is when and what to say to their children about how
to respond if they come in conflictual contact with police.
Communication about how to respond to the police comes
in verbal and nonverbal forms but is generally referred to as
“The Talk”. In one example of The Talk, The New York
Times focused on a Black high school adolescent stopped no
fewer than 60 times as a result of New York City’s highly
scrutinized practice of “stop-and-frisk” (Dressner & Marti-
nez, 2012). In its video documenting the experience of
Tyquan, The New York Times revealed the adolescent’s
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
69
RECASTING RACIAL TRAUMA WITH RACIAL SOCIALIZATION
immediate confusion upon his first police stop. He stated, “I
thought you had to do something for them to really stop you,
but after that, I seen (sic) that you didn’t have to do nothing
to get stopped.” The realization that he was not being
stopped because of any wrongdoing on his part led Tyquan
to perceive his subsequent stops as racially motivated.
Tyquan spontaneously described his appraisal of his
stress during the DRE. He answered the question of whether
the racial stress was a challenge (i.e., difficult but manage-
able) or a threat (i.e., difficult and potentially dangerous) by
indicating that when he asked the officers why he was being
stopped, he felt “threatened” by them. In the reappraisal
process, he assessed whether he could effectively survive
and manage racial stress with adequate resources. After
spending several days in jail for asserting himself with the
police, he reasoned that he did not have the ability or
resources to manage the DRE to which he was exposed in
his repeated contact with the police. Thus, Tyquan’s coping
process was inhibited by a lack of racial coping self-
efficacy. As a result, he chose to remain at home and
disengage from contact with his friends. This avoidant ra-
cial coping strategy prevented him from enjoying normative
adolescent behaviors. However, after Tyquan told his
teacher and mentor, Drew, about his DRE, Drew likewise
shared what he was subjected to in his own police experi-
ences. Drew then provided Tyquan with a checklist of
questions he had developed over time, serving as an impor-
tant socialization tool for Tyquan which helped him to
develop critical skills that he could use to navigate future
experiences with the police. The practice of such skills in
the development of RS competency also led to greater pro-
cessing of emotions between Drew and Tyquan, as they
cried after indicating how fearful and painful (i.e., trau-
matic) these encounters were for them. Tyquan indicated
that his self-efficacy was enhanced, and he became able to
reappraise and resolve his racial stress after he spoke to
Drew and other providers while learning about legal and
statistical information regarding stop-and-frisk practices.
Finally, Tyquan saw improved long-term behavioral, cog-
nitive, emotional, and social outcomes that were related to
the ways in which Drew and other providers effectively
socialized and efficaciously supported him to cope with
DREs.
As illustrated through Tyquan’s experience, and as is
evident in the RECAST model, RS operates as a moderator
of racial stress, efficacy, and coping in the intermediate
process to predict well-being outcomes. To cope with
DREs, youth, parents, and other providers must first believe
they can engage in stressful encounters through the execu-
tion of adaptive and literate racial coping skills. But literacy
requires knowledge and action – and acting on one’s beliefs
and knowledge requires skills, confidence, and practice
(e.g., Avery et al., 2009). To gain skills, enhance confi-
dence, and engage in intentional practice to address race-
based traumatic stress and its symptomatic sequelae, thera-
peutic services and strategies for parents, youth, and the
family system should continue to serve a critical role in the
facilitation of healing processes for such stressful encoun-
ters.
Clinical Implications of Racial Socialization as a
Practice for Healing
As a cognitive– behavioral intervention process, emo-
tional regulation and processing of DREs can reduce anxi-
ety, promote self-efficacy, and promote racial coping and
agency for competent actions and reactions (e.g., Katsikitis,
Bignell, Rooskov, Elms, & Davidson, 2013). Thus, a major
implication for the threat appraisal role of RS is the potential
benefit of cognitive restructuring. We expect that RECAST
will predict how well African American youth can critically
and consciously reappraise and resolve racial conflicts by
facing and challenging the habitus of expendable Black hu-
manity. Increased self-efficacy can help youth and parents to
engage racial stress as a modifiable and problem-solving real-
ity for systemic change, rather than a barrier that is insur-
mountable, through supportive dyadic coping.
Competence is developed through the practice and utility
of contextually and problem-specific behavioral, cognitive,
emotional, and social skills (e.g., Markus, Thomas, & All-
press, 2005). Although skills involving mindfulness and
discernment of contextual conflict and regulation of emo-
tions are teachable through practice and transferrable to a
variety of coping contexts and demands (Hays & Iwamasa,
2006), RS themes have rarely been used to frame the
development of these skills for youth to resolve racial
encounters (Stevenson, 2003). Beyond the contribution of
enhanced RS processes to the psychosocial, emotional,
physical, and academic outcomes of youth, the need to
reduce race-based traumatic stress in parents is often over-
looked. As an example, while parents navigate the stress
associated with DREs, negative affect may emerge that
makes difficult the goal of reappraising an encounter as
manageable (Coard & Sellers, 2005). It is interesting that
negative RS communication may relieve stress in a manner
similar to that of more positive RS (e.g., cultural pride):
both forms of RS, in their own way, provide avenues for
resolution of the conflict. However, negative RS communi-
cation comes at a hefty price for both parents and youth. The
challenge lies in reframing the narrative: being Black itself
is not the problem; rather, it is the effect of systematic and
repeated exposure to negative racialized experiences that
come from being of African descent in America (Carter &
Forsyth, 2009). Presumably, such a shift to purposeful and
mindful RS may relieve parents of their own emotional and
psychological consequences from race-based traumatic
stress. As such, there is a need for interventions to situate
RS as a modifiable mechanism by which families of color
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
70 ANDERSON AND STEVENSON
can increase in efficacy and coping abilities to heal from
stressful quotidian and cumulative DREs.
Although this article endeavors to clearly describe the
tenets of a unifying and novel theory, there is also great
need for empirical evidence that supports this model for
applied purposes. The Engaging, Managing, and Bonding
through Race (EMBRace; Anderson & Stevenson, 2016)
intervention was developed from RECAST (Anderson,
McKenny, & Stevenson, in press) and shows promise in
advancing coping processes for parents, children, and the
family unit (see Anderson, Jones, Navarro, McKenny, &
Stevenson, 2018;Anderson, McKenny, Mitchell, Koku, &
Stevenson, 2018). Other interventions with RS as a compo-
nent (e.g., Black Parenting Strengths and Strategies: Coard
et al., 2007; Preventing Long-term Anger and Aggression in
Youth: Stevenson, 2003) can also benefit from the theoret-
ical advancements brought forth from RECAST as they
strive to improve parenting practices and child well-being.
Conclusion
Because research on youth development continues to lack
an appreciation for the unique psychological conditions that
racial experiences propel upon youth ecologies, a new RS
theory must grapple with racial stress as historically trau-
matic, intergenerational, and pervasive in the daily fabric of
family life (Carter, 2007;DeGruy-Leary, 2004). RECAST
posits that an enhancement to the traditional legacy ap-
proach to RS (e.g., procedural, static) would require under-
standing, self-efficacy, and coping skills to more accurately
read, recast, and resolve DREs through racial literacy (e.g.,
comprehension, transmission; Stevenson, 2014). RECAST
and its practical application through clinical intervention
(i.e., EMBRace) pushes the field toward the active utiliza-
tion of RS to decrease race-based traumatic stress and
improve psychological, health, academic, and identity-
related long-term outcomes.
An implication of RECAST and intervention research
that expects families to reach a level of competency in RS
(a) delivery, (b) acquisition, and (c) implementation is
that it symbolizes going from “The Talk” to “The Walk”
during DREs. This approach also includes the develop-
ment of measurement for trials of interventions infused
with explicit, repeated, and practiced RS teaching tar-
geted for specific racially stressful or uplifting social
interactions to measure intervention components (e.g.,
fidelity) and RECAST elements (e.g., self-efficacy, cop-
ing; Stevenson, 2014,2017). As such, this recommended
model can also drive measurement and methodology
better suited to assess the longitudinal dynamic of cog-
nitive and behavioral processes inherent in the resolution
of DREs through RS, including a corresponding obser-
vational and self-report assessment of RS competency
designed for sensitivity to pre- to posttest change (see
Anderson et al., 2018). Such a measure can provide
supplemental information to the frequency of RS prac-
tices by further assessing skills and preparation.
Although RECAST attempts to more cohesively bridge
frameworks and approaches for stress reduction, several
important elements require more investigation. To be sure,
the unique experiences of biracial and multiracial individ-
uals will become increasingly salient in the coming gener-
ations. RS research on intersectionality beyond race and
gender is sorely lacking, and given the abundance of evi-
dence suggesting that gender is a factor in the socialization
process and its reception (Cooper, Brown, Metzger, Clinton,
& Guthrie, 2013;Hughes et al., 2006), interrogating the
theory with parents and children of varying genders will
also greatly contribute to RECAST processes. Furthermore,
other child sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., age, phe-
notype) and temperament are strongly related to and inform
parenting practices and thus would likewise need to be
considered when theorizing RS practices with youth. Given
that young children notice race throughout their develop-
ment (e.g., Quintana, 1998), research would have to be
conducted for RECAST to lend itself to various develop-
mental periods. In the same way reading a novel would be
challenging to a young child, reading a complicated racial
situation would also prove difficult. As such, RS approaches
for young children would not be absent; rather, would need
to be modified to be understood within the scope of chil-
dren’s developmental capacity (e.g., via hair-combing in-
teractions; Lewis, 1999). Last, given that inferential evi-
dence is limited, future large-scale research, particularly
through intervention studies, will be crucial to support the
authors’ claims. Indeed, future research aiming to test the
theoretical postulates of RECAST would provide evidence
for the model while also contributing to sorely needed
clinical and community interventions for healing from racial
stress and trauma.
Future Recommendations
Although limitations to this proposition are certain, this
theorizing is meant to consolidate some aspects of research
and attempts to position RS as reflected in verbal and
nonverbal interactions that can relieve the racial stress,
self-efficacy, and coping struggles of parents and children.
However, to push the field of RS research in the future,
clarity on the role of RS is just one step toward many in
developing more sophisticated psychological and ecological
measures and interventions. In addition to mindfully track-
ing how DREs are debilitating, future research might study
how beneficial practiced responses can be in mitigating
racial insult (e.g., debating, “comeback lines”; Stevenson,
2014). Given that racial stressors are arguably dissimilar
from other stressors, extensions of this theory that consider
how individuals make meaning of and cope with DREs
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
71
RECASTING RACIAL TRAUMA WITH RACIAL SOCIALIZATION
during pivotal and specific developmental periods will be
invaluable. Finally, although the focus of examples through-
out the text has been on preparation for bias in the face of
discrimination, this does not suggest that cultural socializa-
tion, for example, would not be a suitable strategy in ad-
dressing threat. This also does not imply that youth are
naturally prepared for positive racial interactions without
RS. The assertion cannot be made more strongly that if RS
is provided without a core and primary commitment to
affirming the cherished humanity of people of color, then it
is undermining the competence necessary for youth to nav-
igate current and future racialized environments.
#NoHashtag
In the text of the opening poem, the author details his
mother’s helplessness in protecting him from a triggered
police officer that would result in yet another tragic hashtag.
In another poem, that author considers his nephew and
reflects on one of the key elements of RECAST: literacy.
Don’t like the
fact that he learned to hide from the cops before he knew
how to read.
Angrier that his survival depends more on his ability
to deal with the “authorities”
than it does his own literacy. (Johnson, 2013)
Without explicit RS feedback on how to navigate DREs
both internally and interpersonally, children and parents
may be left to physiologically and emotionally restrictive
reactions when they arise. With legacy RS, families are
made aware of the complexity of race relations that go well
or awry and may recommend procedural responses (e.g.,
“be polite”). But a literacy RS would expect more practicing
of not only the procedural responses to make but, more
important, the emotion regulation necessary to assertively
address the DRE and count its emotional cost toward a
psychologically healthy experience (e.g., appraise, grow in
efficacy, cope, and achieve desired outcomes through
heightened RS competency techniques). RECAST posits
that, unlike the hopes and prayers of the mother in the
opening poem, RS strategies must represent more than just
a wishing well’s chance for survival and safe return home.
References
Adam, E. K., Heissel, J. A., Zeiders, K. H., Richeson, J. A., Ross, E. C.,
Ehrlich, K. B.,...Eccles, J. S. (2015). Developmental histories of
perceived racial discrimination and diurnal cortisol profiles in adult-
hood: A 20-year prospective study. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 62,
279 –291. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2015.08.018
Affleck, G., & Tennen, H. (1996). Construing benefits from adversity:
Adaptational significance and dispositional underpinnings. Journal of
Personality, 64, 899 –922. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1996
.tb00948.x
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical man-
ual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric
Publishing.
American Psychological Association (APA). (2013). Discrimination: What
it is, and how to cope. Retrieved June 1, 2017 from http://www.apa.org/
helpcenter/discrimination.aspx
Anderson, R. E., McKenny, M., Mitchell, A., Koku, L., & Stevenson, H. C.
(2018). EMBRacing racial stress and trauma: Preliminary feasibility and
coping outcomes of a racial socialization intervention. Journal of Black
Psychology, 44, 25– 46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0095798417732930
Anderson, R. E., Jones, S., Anyiwo, N., McKenny, M., & Gaylord-Harden,
N. (2018). What’s race got to do with it? The contribution of racial
socialization to Black adolescent coping. Journal of Research on Ado-
lescence. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jora
.12440
Anderson, R. E., Jones, S. C. T., Navarro, C., McKenny, M., & Stevenson,
H. C. (2018). Addressing the mental health needs of Black youth and
families: Solutions from a case in the EMBRace intervention. Interna-
tional Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15, 898.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15050898
Anderson, R. E., & Stevenson, H. C. (2016). EMBRace training manual.
Unpublished training manual, Racial Empowerment Collaborative,
Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania.
Anderson, R. E., Jones, S. C. T., & Stevenson, H. C. (2018). Racial
socialization competency: Quality over quantity. Manuscript submitted
for publication.
Anderson, R. E., McKenny, M., & Stevenson, H. C. (in press). EMBRace:
Developing a Racial Socialization Intervention to Reduce Racial Stress
and Enhance Racial Coping with Black Parents and Adolescents. Family
Process.
Avery, D. R., Richeson, J. A., Hebl, M. R., & Ambady, N. (2009). It does
not have to be uncomfortable: The role of behavioral scripts in Black-
White interracial interactions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1382–
1393. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0016208
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York, NY:
Macmillan.
Bentley, K., Adams, V. N., & Author. (2009). Racial socialization: Roots,
processes and outcomes. In H. Neville, B. Tynes, & S. Utsey (Eds.),
Handbook of African American psychology (pp. 255–267) Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Bishop, S., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N., Carmody, J.,
. . . Devins, G. (2004). Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition.
Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 11, 230 –241. http://dx.doi
.org/10.1093/clipsy.bph077
Bodenmann, G. (1997). Dyadic coping: A systematic-transactional view of
stress and coping among couples: Theory and empirical findings. Euro-
pean Review of Applied Psychology, 47, 137–140.
Boykin, A. W., & Toms, F. D. (1985). Black child socialization: A
conceptual framework. In H. McAdoo & J. McAdoo (Eds.), Black
children: Social, educational, and parental environments (pp. 33–52).
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Buehler, S. (2017). “Don’t want to get exposed”: Law’s violence and
access to justice. Journal of Law and Social Policy, 26, 68 – 89.
Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1995). Evaluation of a program to
teach phonemic awareness to young children: A 2- and 3-year follow-up
in a new preschool trial. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 488 –
503. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.87.3.488
Carter, R. T. (2007). Racism and psychological and emotional injury:
Recognizing and assessing race-based traumatic stress. Counseling Psy-
chologist, 35, 13–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011000006292033
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
72 ANDERSON AND STEVENSON
Carter, R. T., & Forsyth, J. M. (2009). A guide to the forensic assessment
of race-based traumatic stress reactions. Journal of the American Acad-
emy of Psychiatry and the Law, 37, 28 – 40.
Carter, R., Mazzula, S., Victoria, R., Vazquez, R., Hall, S., Smith, S.,...
Williams, B. (2013). Initial development of the Race-Based Traumatic
Stress Symptom Scale: Assessing the emotional impact of racism. Psy-
chological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 5, 1–9.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0025911
Caughy, M. O. B., Nettles, S., & Lima, J. (2011). Profiles of racial
socialization among African American parents: Correlates, context, and
outcome. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 20, 491–502. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1007/s10826-010-9416-1
Clark, R., Anderson, N. B., Clark, V. R., & Williams, D. R. (1999). Racism
as a stressor for African Americans. A biopsychosocial model. American
Psychologist, 54, 805– 816. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.10
.805
Coard, S., Foy-Watson, S., Zimmer, C., & Wallace, A. (2007). Considering
culturally relevant parenting practices in intervention development and
adaptation: A randomized controlled trial of the Black Parenting
Strengths and Strategies (BPSS) Program. Counseling Psychologist, 35,
797– 820. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011000007304592
Coard, S., & Sellers, R. (2005). African American families as a context for
racial socialization. African American family life: Ecological and cul-
tural diversity, 264 –284.
Comas-Díaz, L. (2016). Racial trauma recovery: A race-informed thera-
peutic approach to racial wounds. In A. N. Alvarez, C. T. H. Liang, &
H. A. Neville (Eds.), Cultural, racial, and ethnic psychology book
series: The cost of racism for people of color: Contextualizing experi-
ences of discrimination (pp. 249–272). http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/14852-
012
Cooper, S. M., Brown, C., Metzger, I., Clinton, Y., & Guthrie, B. (2013).
Racial discrimination and African American adolescents’ adjustment:
Gender variation in family and community social support, promotive and
protective factors. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 22, 15–29.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10826-012-9608-y
Crouter, A. C., Baril, M. E., Davis, K., & McHale, S. M. (2008). Processes
linking social class and racial socialization in African American dual-
earner families. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70, 1311–1325. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2008.00568.x
DeGruy-Leary, J. (2004). Post traumatic slave syndrome: America’s leg-
acy of enduring injury and healing (1st ed.). Milwaukie, OR: Upton
Press.
Derlan, C. L., & Umaña-Taylor, A. J. (2015). Brief report: Contextual
predictors of African American adolescents’ ethnic-racial identity
affirmation-belonging and resistance to peer pressure. Journal of Ado-
lescence, 41, 1– 6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2015.02.002
Dressner, J., & Martinez, E. (2012, June 12). The scars of stop-and-frisk.
New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/
opinion/the-scars-of-stop-and-frisk.html
Fava, G. A., Rafanelli, C., Cazzaro, M., Conti, S., & Grandi, S. (1998).
Well-being therapy: A novel psychotherapeutic approach for residual
symptoms of affective disorders. Psychological Medicine, 28, 475– 480.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0033291797006363
Fischer, A. R., & Shaw, C. M. (1999). African Americans’ mental health
and perceptions of racist discrimination: The moderating effects of racial
socialization experiences and self-esteem. Journal of Counseling Psy-
chology, 46, 395– 407. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.46.3.395
Folkman, S. (2013). Stress: Appraisal and coping. In M. D. Gellman &
J. R. Turner (Eds.), Encyclopedia of behavioral medicine (2nd ed., pp.
1913–1915). http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_215
Folkman, S., & Lazarus, R. S. (1980). An analysis of coping in a middle-
aged community sample. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 21,
219 –239. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2136617
Folkman, S., & Moskowitz, J. T. (2000). Positive affect and the other side
of coping. American Psychologist, 55, 647– 654. http://dx.doi.org/10
.1037/0003-066X.55.6.647
Garland, E. L., Gaylord, S. A., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2011). Positive
reappraisal mediates the stress-reductive effects of mindfulness: An
upward spiral process. Mindfulness, 2, 59 – 67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/
s12671-011-0043-8
Gudykunst, W. (1995). The uncertainty reduction and anxiety-uncertainty
reduction theories of Berger and Gudykunst. In D. P. Cushman & B.
Kovacic (Eds.), Watershed research traditions in human communication
theory (pp. 67–100). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Gudykunst, W. B. (2005). An anxiety/uncertainty management (AUM)
theory of strangers’ intercultural adjustment. In W. B. Gudykunst (Ed.),
Theorizing about intercultural communication (pp. 419 – 457). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Gudykunst, W. B., & Shapiro, R. B. (1996). Communication in everyday
interpersonal and intergroup encounters. International Journal of Inter-
cultural Relations, 20, 19 – 45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0147-
1767(96)00037-5
Hamm, J., & Coleman, H. (2001). African American and White adoles-
cents’ strategies for managing cultural diversity in predominantly White
high schools. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 30, 281–303. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1023/A:1010488027628
Harrell, S. P. (2000). A multidimensional conceptualization of racism-
related stress: Implications for the well-being of people of color. Amer-
ican Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 70, 42–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/
h0087722
Harris-Britt, A., Valrie, C. R., Kurtz-Costes, B., & Rowley, S. J. (2007).
Perceived racial discrimination and self-esteem in African American
youth: Racial socialization as a protective factor. Journal of Research on
Adolescence, 17, 669 – 682. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2007
.00540.x
Hays, P. A., & Iwamasa, G. Y. (Eds.). (2006). Culturally responsive
cognitive-behavioral therapy: Assessment, practice, and supervision.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/11433-000
Helms, J. E., Nicolas, G., & Green, C. E. (2012). Racism and ethnoviolence
as trauma: Enhancing professional and research training. Traumatology,
18, 65–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1534765610396728
Hoggard, L. S., Byrd, C. M., & Sellers, R. M. (2012). Comparison of
African American college students’ coping with racially and nonracially
stressful events. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 18,
329 –339. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0029437
Hughes, D., & Chen, L. (1999). The nature of parents’ race-related com-
munications to children: A developmental perspective. In L. Balter &
C. S. Tamis-LeMonda (Eds.), Child psychology: A handbook of contem-
porary issues (pp. 467– 490). New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Hughes, D., & Johnson, D. (2001). Correlates in children’s experiences of
parents’ racial socialization behaviors. Journal of Marriage and Family,
63, 981–995. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2001.00981.x
Hughes, D., Rodriguez, J., Smith, E. P., Johnson, D. J., Stevenson, H. C.,
& Spicer, P. (2006). Parents’ ethnic-racial socialization practices: A
review of research and directions for future study. Developmental Psy-
chology, 42, 747–770. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.42.5.747
Hughes, D., Witherspoon, D., Rivas-Drake, D., & West-Bey, N. (2009).
Received ethnic-racial socialization messages and youths’ academic and
behavioral outcomes: Examining the mediating role of ethnic identity
and self-esteem. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 15,
112–124. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0015509
Huynh, V. W., & Fuligni, A. J. (2008). Ethnic socialization and the
academic adjustment of adolescents from Mexican, Chinese, and Euro-
pean backgrounds. Developmental Psychology, 44, 1202–1208. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.44.4.1202
Jernigan, M. M., & Daniel, J. H. (2011). Racial trauma in the lives of Black
children and adolescents: Challenges and clinical implications. Journal
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
73
RECASTING RACIAL TRAUMA WITH RACIAL SOCIALIZATION
of Child & Adolescent Trauma, 4, 123–141. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/
19361521.2011.574678
Johnson, J. (2013). Cuz he’s Black. Retrieved October 1, 2017, from
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-poet-explains-painful-
reality-of-police-violence-to-his-4-year-old-nephew_us_5644cb
3fe4b06037734803cd
Johnson, J. (2016). [Untitled poem]. Retrieved March 31, 2016, from
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDm-Peojlb6/?taken-by⫽javonism
Katsikitis, M., Bignell, K., Rooskov, N., Elms, L., & Davidson, G. R.
(2013). The family strengthening program: Influences on parental mood,
parental sense of competence and family functioning. Advances in
Mental Health, 11, 143–151. http://dx.doi.org/10.5172/jamh.2013.11.2
.143
Kliewer, W., Fearnow, M. D., & Miller, P. A. (1996). Coping socialization
in middle childhood: Tests of maternal and paternal influences. Child
Development, 67, 2339 –2357. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1131627
Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Coping and adaptation. In W. D.
Gentry (Ed.), The handbook of behavioral medicine (pp. 282–325). New
York, NY: Guilford Press.
Lesane-Brown, C. L. (2006). A review of race socialization within Black
families. Developmental Review, 26, 400 – 426. http://dx.doi.org/10
.1016/j.dr.2006.02.001
Lewis, M. L. (1999). Hair combing interactions: A new paradigm for
research with African-American mothers. American Journal of Ortho-
psychiatry, 69, 504 –514. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0080398
Major, B., Kaiser, C. R., O’Brien, L. T., & McCoy, S. K. (2007). Perceived
discrimination as worldview threat or worldview confirmation: Implica-
tions for self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92,
1068 –1086. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1068
Markus, L., Thomas, H. C., & Allpress, K. (2005). Confounded by com-
petencies? An evaluation of the evolution and use of competency mod-
els. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 34, 117–126.
McGill, R. K., Hughes, D., Alicea, S., & Way, N. (2012). Academic
adjustment across middle school: The role of public regard and parent-
ing. Developmental Psychology, 48, 1003–1018. http://dx.doi.org/10
.1037/a0026006
Murry, V. M., Berkel, C., Brody, G. H., Miller, S. J., & Chen, Y.-F. (2009).
Linking parental socialization to interpersonal protective processes, ac-
ademic self-presentation, and expectations among rural African Ameri-
can youth. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 15, 1–10.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0013180
Neblett, E., Jr., Philip, C., Cogburn, C., & Sellers, R. (2006). African
American adolescents’ discrimination experiences and academic
achievement: Racial socialization as a cultural compensatory and pro-
tective factor. Journal of Black Psychology, 32, 199 –218. http://dx.doi
.org/10.1177/0095798406287072
Pachter, L. M., Bernstein, B. A., Szalacha, L. A., & García Coll, C. (2010).
Perceived racism and discrimination in children and youths: An explor-
atory study. Health & Social Work, 35, 61– 69. http://dx.doi.org/10
.1093/hsw/35.1.61
Pisterman, S., Firestone, P., McGrath, P., Goodman, J. T., Webster, I.,
Mallory, R., & Coffin, B. (1992). The effects of parent training on
parenting stress and sense of competence. Canadian Journal of Behav-
ioural Science, 24, 41–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0078699
Provencher, H. L. (2007). Role of psychological factors in studying recov-
ery from a transactional stress-coping approach: Implications for mental
health nursing practices. International Journal of Mental Health Nurs-
ing, 16, 188 –197. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1447-0349.2007.00466.x
Quintana, S. M. (1998). Children’s developmental understanding of eth-
nicity and race. Applied & Preventive Psychology, 7, 27– 45. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1016/S0962-1849(98)80020-6
Reynolds, J. E., & Gonzales-Backen, M. A. (2017). Ethnic-racial social-
ization and the mental health of African Americans: A critical review.
Journal of Family Theory & Review, 9, 182–200. http://dx.doi.org/10
.1111/jftr.12192
Richeson, J. A., & Trawalter, S. (2005). Why do interracial interactions
impair executive function? A resource depletion account. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 934 –947. http://dx.doi.org/10
.1037/0022-3514.88.6.934
Rodriguez, J., McKay, M. M., & Bannon, W. M., Jr. (2008). The role of
racial socialization in relation to parenting practices and youth behavior:
An exploratory analysis. Social Work in Mental Health, 6, 30 –54.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15332980802032409
Sawyer, P. J., Major, B., Casad, B. J., Townsend, S. S., & Mendes, W. B.
(2012). Discrimination and the stress response: Psychological and phys-
iological consequences of anticipating prejudice in interethnic interac-
tions. American Journal of Public Health, 102, 1020 –1026. http://dx.doi
.org/10.2105/AJPH.2011.300620
Schwarzer, R., & Renner, B. (2000). Social-cognitive predictors of health
behavior: Action self-efficacy and coping self-efficacy. Health Psychol-
ogy, 19, 487– 495. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.19.5.487
Scott, L. D., Jr. (2003). The relation of racial identity and racial socializa-
tion to coping with discrimination among African American adolescents.
Journal of Black Studies, 33, 520 –538. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/
0021934702250035
Seol, K. O., Yoo, H. C., Lee, R. M., Park, J. E., & Kyeong, Y. (2016).
Racial and ethnic socialization as moderators of racial discrimination
and school adjustment of adopted and nonadopted Korean American
adolescents. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 63, 294 –306. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1037/cou0000120
Skiba, R. J., & Williams, N. T. (2014). Are Black kids worse? Myths and
facts about racial differences in behavior. Bloomington: The Equity
Project at Indiana University.
Soto, J. A., Dawson-Andoh, N. A., & BeLue, R. (2011). The relationship
between perceived discrimination and generalized anxiety disorder
among African Americans, Afro Caribbeans, and non-Hispanic Whites.
Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 25, 258 –265. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j
.janxdis.2010.09.011
Southern Poverty Law Center. (2016, November 28). The Trump effect:
The impact of the 2016 presidential election on our nation’s schools.
Retrieved from https://www.splcenter.org/20161128/trump-effect-
impact-2016-presidential-election-our-nations-schools
Spencer, M. B., Dupree, D., & Hartmann, T. (1997). A phenomenological
variant of ecological systems theory (PVEST): A self-organization per-
spective in context. Development and Psychopathology, 9, 817– 833.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0954579497001454
Stevenson, H. C. (2003). Playing with anger: Teaching coping skills to
African American boys through athletics and culture. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Publishing Group.
Stevenson, H. C. (2014). Promoting racial literacy in schools: Differences
that make a difference. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Stevenson, H. C. (2017). Dueling narratives: Racial socialization and
literacy as triggers for re-humanizing African American boys, young
men and their families. In L. M. Burton, D. Burton, S. M. McHale, V.
King, & J. Van Hook (Eds.), National Symposium on Family Issues: Vol
7.Boys and men in African American families (pp. 55–84). http://dx.doi
.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43847-4_5
Stevenson, H. C., & Arrington, E. (2009). Racial/ethnic socialization
mediates perceived racism and the racial identity of African American
adolescents. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 15,
125–136. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0015500
Stevenson, H. C., Davis, G., & Abdul-Kabir, S. (2001). Stickin’ to,
watchin’ over, and gettin’ with: An African American parent’s guide to
discipline. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Terrell, F., Miller, A. R., Foster, K., & Watkins, Jr., C. E. (2006). Racial
discrimination-induced anger and alcohol use among Black adolescents.
Adolescence, 41, 485– 492.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
74 ANDERSON AND STEVENSON
Thomas, A., & Blackmon, S. (2015). The influence of the Trayvon Martin
shooting on racial socialization practices of African American parents.
Journal of Black Psychology, 41, 75– 89.
Thomas, D. E., Coard, S. I., Stevenson, H. C., Bentley, K., & Zamel, P.
(2009). Racial and emotional factors predicting teachers’ perceptions of
classroom behavioral maladjustment for urban African American male
youth. Psychology in the Schools, 46, 184 –196.
Thornhill, T. (2016). Resistance and assent: How racial socialization
shapes Black students’ experience learning African American history in
high school. Urban Education, 51, 1126 –1151.
Tynes, B., Giang, M., Williams, D., & Thompson, G. (2008). Online racial
discrimination and psychological adjustment among adolescents. Jour-
nal of Adolescent Health, 43, 565–569.
Wang, M., & Hughley, J. (2012). Parental racial socialization as a mod-
erator of the effects of racial discrimination on educational success
among African American adolescents. Child Development, 83, 1716 –
1731.
Weisz, J. R. (1986). Contingency and control beliefs as predictors of
psychotherapy outcomes among children and adolescents. Journal of
Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 54, 789 –795. http://dx.doi.org/10
.1037/0022-006X.54.6.789
White-Johnson, R., Ford, K., & Sellers, R. (2010). Parental racial social-
ization profiles: Association with demographic factors, racial discrimi-
nation, childhood socialization, and racial identity. Cultural Diversity &
Ethnic Minority Psychology, 16, 237–247. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a00
16111
Williams, D. R., & Leavell, J. (2012). The social context of cardiovascular
disease: Challenges and opportunities for the Jackson Heart Study.
Ethnicity & Disease, 22, 1–15.
Williams, D. R., & Medlock, M. (2017). Health effects of dramatic societal
events—Ramifications of the recent presidential election. New England
Journal of Medicine, 376, 2295–2299. http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/
NEJMms1702111
Woods-Giscombé, C. L., & Black, A. R. (2010). Mind-body interventions
to reduce risk for health disparities related to stress and strength among
African American women: The potential of mindfulness-based stress
reduction, loving-kindness, and the NTU therapeutic framework. Com-
plementary Health Practice Review, 15, 115–131.
Worrell, F., Vandiver, B., Schaefer, B., Cross, W., Jr., & Fhagen-Smith, P.
(2006). Generalizing Nigrescence profiles: Cluster analyses of Cross
Racial Identity Scale (CRIS) scores in three independent samples. Coun-
seling Psychologist, 34, 519 –547.
Yasui, M. (2015). A review of the empirical assessment of processes in
ethnic-racial socialization: Examining methodological advances and fu-
ture areas of development. Developmental Review, 37, 1– 40.
Zuckerman, M., & Gagne, M. (2003). The COPE revised: Proposing a
5-factor model of coping strategies. Journal of Research in Personality,
37, 169 –204.
Received September 21, 2017
Revision received August 19, 2018
Accepted September 4, 2018 䡲
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
75
RECASTING RACIAL TRAUMA WITH RACIAL SOCIALIZATION
A preview of this full-text is provided by American Psychological Association.
Content available from American Psychologist
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
