Am I My Sister’s Keeper? Linking Domestic Violence Attitudes to Black Racial Identity

Abstract

This exploratory online investigation sought to examine the links between African American college women’s gender role attitudes, Black racial identity attitudes, and domestic violence attitudes toward African American women in heterosexual marital relationships where domestic violence occurs ( N = 192). Less sophisticated Black racial identity attitudes (i.e., pre-encounter and immersion-emersion) predicted greater self-reports of justifying domestic violence toward African American women and believing that African American women benefit from abuse. Pre-encounter and immersion-emersion attitudes also predicted less willingness to help victims. An Afrocentric worldview (i.e., internalization Afrocentricity) was positively predictive of believing that African American women benefit from domestic violence as well as greater willingness to help victims. Appreciating one’s African American identity and other racial and ethnic groups (i.e., internalization multiculturalist inclusive) predicted less justification, fewer reports that African American women benefit from abuse, and a greater willingness to help victims. Post hoc mediation analyses revealed that gender role attitudes and an investment in protecting African American male domestic violence perpetrators (i.e., Black male victimage and justification beliefs) mediated the link between internalization Afrocentricity attitudes and the belief that African American women benefit from abuse.