The Urban Stress and African American Youth study is a faculty research project at Hampton University's Behavior Sciences Research Center.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Zina T. McGee

Project Aims

This program funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) addresses the victimization patterns of lower class African American youth in high stress urban environments.

The study has three specific aims:

• First, the project determines the perceived level of fear and exposure to violence among urban youth.
• Second, the study examines the level of fear and exposure to violence as it relates to dimensions of personality in youngsters.
• Third, the study focuses on the extent to which personality traits moderate coping strategies utilized by African American adolescents across levels of perceived victimization.

Despite the emergence of research on violent behavior among urban youth, many studies have not effectively addressed the issue of gun and drug-related violence, particularly as it occurs within inner city areas and schools. Further, very little is known about the victims of such violence and the emotional consequences that ensue. Although violence is a defining characteristic of many cities, few recent studies have explored the impact on mental health and development of children and adolescents residing in these chronically violent neighborhoods.

Research continues to indicate that many of the personal problems experienced by Black youth, in particular, originate in the social and economic structures of society, causing a direct impairment of their abilities to adapt to or modify their environment. A majority of the studies that have addressed violence, however, emphasize the effects of television violence on youth as opposed to real-life violent events. Further, epidemiological surveys of mental health seldom include adequate samples of inner city Black youth.

Thus, this project is designed to measure the degree of perceived victimization and/or actual attack experienced by a sample of African-American adolescents in an urban setting. The project extends the study of the effects of violence on adolescents by including measures of personality dimension as moderators of the stress experienced in these urban environments. Finally, the intent is to discover the linkages between personality and patterns of coping among youth residing in high stress settings. The model will demonstrate that the impact of environmental stressors is significantly shaped by individual profiles on the "Big Five" personality traits including Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Neuroticism (Emotional Stability), and Openness to Experience.

The project differentiates several levels of victimization based on responses to a violent victimization survey by adolescent residents of urban areas with high levels of violence. The study uses responses of these urban adolescents on the victimization scale to divide the participants into three groups: those who perceive that they have been exposed to low levels of violence; those who perceive that they have been exposed to moderate levels of violence; and those who perceive that they have been exposed to high levels of violence.

The study of reactions to violence has been extended to analyze measures of the five-factor model of personality across these levels of victimization as indicated by Goldberg's 100 synonym clusters, and assesses the usefulness of each of the five dimensions of personality on coping strategies.

The project will determine the interactions between these personality domains and coping strategies as indicated by Vitaliano's Ways of Coping Checklist (WCCL) coping scale. The three instruments are being completed by 500 lower class African Americans between the ages of 12 and 17 in the State of Virginia.

Census tract data have been utilized to obtain a sample selected from various school, church, and community organizations that service youth in urban areas. Statistics for the urban portions of Hampton Roads (Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Newport News, and Hampton) have provided the basis for a quota sampling procedure that is being used in this study. Participants are being recruited to fit the demographic characteristics developed from the census data. Participants from neighborhoods are also being recruited from neighborhoods indicated in the census to be representative of the groups of interest.

The significance of this research program is the determination of the relationships between victimization, personality factors, and coping strategies in African American adolescents in high risk environments. The greatest significance of this research is to provide an understanding of the role of particular personality traits on coping strategies used by inner city Black youth. These understandings will provide an empirical basis on which to develop mental health interventions with particular groups of inner city youth to efficiently develop and reinforce effective coping behaviors to offset the detrimental impact of growing up in such violent areas.

McGee, Z. T. (2000). Weapon Related Violence: A Study of Weapon Related Victimization Among Urban High School Students. In J. Joseph and D. Taylor (Eds.) Minorities and Crime (forthcoming)

McGee, Z. T. (1999). Urban Stress and African American Youth: A Study of School Violence. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation

McGee, Z. T. (1996). The violent victimization survey. In R. Jones (Ed.) Handbook of tests and measurements for Black populations. Hampton, VA: Cobb & Henry Publishers

For further information e-mail: Dr. Zina T. McGee (See also, Dr. McGee's Vita.)