Racial Pride

Racial Identity Factor

Racial pride is one of multiple racial identity attitudinal factors that describe how Blacks identify with their racial group. Conceptually, racial pride is the endorsement of a positive Black identity and an attitude of interest or involvement in activities related to the culture. Empirically, measures of racial pride are subsumed in racial identity scales such as the Black Racial Identity Attitudes Scale and brief scales to measure collectivism, religiosity, racial pride, and time orientation. Racial identity research based on racial pride attitudes consistently support its conceptual assumptions, and associate more positive pride attitudes with fewer general psychological distress symptoms and improvement in health-related behaviors, such as breast cancer-related knowledge and mammography screening. Conversely, racial pride's contribution to racial socialization research is more complex.

Racial Socialization Factor

As a construct in the multidimensional conceptualization of racial socialization, racial pride refers to one of the messages parents convey to their children regarding the meaning of being Black. Theoretically, like other socialization messages, racial pride is transmitted intentionally and unintentionally from parents to children in tacit and explicit ways to aid in their psychological adjustment, especially in dealing with racism and discrimination in society. Empirically based racial pride measures emerged out of qualitative data from the landmark National Study of Black Americans and subsequent racial socialization measures, such as the Cultural Pride Reinforcement subscale of the Scale of Racial Socialization; this sub-scale measures knowledge about African American history and culture and positive feelings about the cultural group. Growing evidence supports greater racial pride socialization among girls than boys, whereas boys are more likely to receive socialization messages related to racial barriers such as discrimination. Moreover, racial pride differentially contributes to psychological outcomes such as depression, anger, and aggression for boys and girls. Among adolescents, racial pride has been positively associated with self-esteem, kinship social support, knowledge about one's racial group, and favorable ingroup attitudes. However, some evidence suggests negative relationships between racial pride and academic curiosity and grade point average outcomes, raising questions about whether the pride socialization comes before or after the poor academic indicators. The complex findings surrounding racial pride provide impetus for future directions of the research.

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