Individual- and Family-Level Correlates of Socio-Emotional Functioning among African American Youth from Single-Mother Homes: A Compensatory Resilience Model

Abstract

The majority of research on African American adolescents raised in single-mother homes has focused on externalizing problems, with less attention to other facets of socio-emotional functioning. Using a compensatory resilience approach, the current study examined risk and protective factors at the family (maternal warmth, monitoring, psychological control) and youth (ethnic identity and religiosity) levels as predictors of depressive symptoms, hopelessness, and self-esteem among African American adolescents from single-mother homes (n = 193). Lower levels of psychological control, higher levels of monitoring, and higher levels of youth ethnic identity were associated with at least one of the outcomes, depressive symptoms, hopelessness, and self-esteem. In addition, self-esteem, but not hopelessness, mediated the associations between the family- and youth-level factors and youth depressive symptoms. The importance of targeting maternal psychological control and youth ethnic identity, as well as self-esteem, in intervention programs for African American youth from single-mother families is discussed.

Keywords

adolescents race/ethnicity single parents parent/child relations child discipline

Between 55% and 66% (Casey Foundation, 2017; U.S. Census Bureau, 2012) of African American adolescents are raised in single-mother families. In general, the empirical literature has conceptualized single-parent households as contexts that put children and adolescents at risk for negative psychosocial outcomes relative to children and adolescents raised in two-parent households (Daryanani, Hamilton, Abramson, & Alloy, 2016; Kendig & Bianchi, 2008). While many African American youth raised in single-parent families do not exhibit negative outcomes, there can be unique stressors affecting African American single-mother families. For example, single mothers must often contend with the strain of greater role responsibility and daily stressors (e.g., assuming roles and parenting work that is oftentimes shared by two parents), and other risk factors associated with single parenthood (e.g., depression, anxiety; Murry, Bynum, Brody, Willert, & Stephens, 2001) that may decrease positive time spent with children and impede effective parenting. The greater role responsibility and daily stressors experienced by single mothers compared to married mothers are largely related to lower average incomes among single mothers compared to married mothers (Kendig & Bianchi, 2008). In addition, single mothers may experience less interpersonal power within the parent–child relationship, which may result in the use of suboptimal parenting strategies (Walling, Mills, & Freeman, 2007). Both mothers and children in African American families also often have to contend with racial discrimination in the broader society (Murry, Brody, Simons, Cutrona, & Gibbons, 2008; Varner & Mandara, 2013), which can negatively impact parenting (Murry et al., 2008).

Compensatory resilience theory highlights that, among a group considered at risk for negative outcomes, such as African American youth from single-mother families, risk and protective factors that are both internal (e.g., ethnic identity) and external (e.g., family relationships) can impact socio-emotional outcomes among youth (e.g., Evans, Marsh & Weigel, 2010; Fergus & Zimmerman, 2005; Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000). From a compensatory resilience theory standpoint, risk factors are characteristics of an individual or environment that predict a negative outcome and protective factors are characteristics that predict better outcomes, particularly among those facing an adverse circumstance (Evans et al., 2010), such as growing up in a single-mother family. Although there is likely substantive variability within and across families, including within African American single-mother families in particular, a compensatory model of resilience suggests that there is value in identifying factors that likely confer risk and mental health promotion for youth within a particular at-risk group (Zimmerman, Bingenheimer, & Notaro, 2002; Zimmerman et al., 2013). The majority of studies conducted on psychosocial functioning of African American adolescents, across both single-parent and two-parent families, have focused on externalizing difficulties (e.g., Bowman, Prelow, & Weeaver, 2007; Henneberger, Durkee, Truong, Atkins, & Tolan, 2013; Stewart & Simons, 2010). However, growing evidence suggests the need to also attend to the broader socio-emotional functioning of these youth.

Despite earlier findings showing African Americans as a group, particularly adults, tend to display lower rates of depression than Caucasians (Breslau et al., 2006; Oquendo et al., 2001), recent literature has demonstrated that African American adolescents actually experience depression at higher rates than Caucasian adolescents (e.g., Gaylord-Harden, Cunningham, & Zelencik, 2011; Liu, Bolland, Dick, Mustanski, & Kertes, 2016; McMahon, Coker, & Parnes, 2013). Hopelessness, another domain of socio-emotional functioning, refers to negative expectations about the self and future valued outcomes (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989; Beck, 1976), and while related to depression, is distinct in its emphasis on cognitive processes as compared to depression, which refers to negative mood and related physiological symptoms (Thompson, Mazza, Herting, Randell, & Eggert, 2005). Among African American adolescents, hopelessness has mostly been examined in terms of its links to risky neighborhood contexts and as a predictor of behavior problems (Bolland, Lian, & Formichella, 2005; Burnside & Gaylord-Harden, 2019; Kagan et al., 2012), but has received less attention in relation to other indicators of emotional functioning. In addition, although African American adolescents experience similar or higher levels of self-esteem than adolescents of other ethnicities (Adams, 2010; Bachman, O’Malley, Freedman-Doan, Trzesniewski, & Donnellan, 2011), models that examine links to higher self-esteem within what is considered an at-risk group, can highlight resilience-promoting factors that can be strengthened in interventions. In addition to the importance of examining hopelessness and self-esteem as outcomes, both have been found to be precursors to depression (Gaylord-Harden, Ragsdale, Mandara, Richards, & Petersen, 2007; Hamilton et al., 2013; Lee & Hankin, 2009; Swenson & Prelow, 2005; Weir & Jose, 2008; Wouters, Colpin, Luyckx, & Verschueren, 2018). Cognitive theories of depression highlight that negative inferential styles about the self, consequences of events, and causes of events, can be manifested as low self-esteem and hopelessness, which can, in turn, lead to depression (Abramson et al., 1989; Beck, 1976). The literature is just beginning to focus on identifying ecological models that predict depression, hopelessness, and self-esteem, and associations among these outcomes, within samples of African American adolescents, particularly those from single-mother families.

At the family level, both attachment and emotional security theories suggest that healthy parent–child relationships enhance children’s emotional security and, in turn, yield less vulnerability for sadness, anxiety, and low self-worth (e.g., Coley, Kull, & Carrano, 2014; Davies, Harold, Goeke-Morey, & Cummings, 2002; Davies & Martin, 2014). Three main domains of parental behavior include parental emotional support, or expressions of acceptance and warmth; behavioral control, the provision of regulation and structure on a child’s behavior; and psychological control, or the use of manipulation of the love relationship between the parent and child to control the youths’ psychological world (Bean, Barber, & Crane, 2006). Higher levels of emotional support and behavioral control have been linked with positive youth functioning and development, while higher levels of psychological control have been linked to suboptimal youth functioning and development (Gutman, McLoyd, & Tokoyawa, 2005; King, Vidourek, Yockey, & Merianos, 2018). Examinations of parenting in African American families have highlighted that African American parents often engage in high levels of behavioral control, such as monitoring, harsh discipline, demand for respect, and limit-setting, and also high levels of warmth and affection (Brody & Flor, 1998; Gutman, Peck, Malanchuk, Sameroff, & Eccles, 2017; Kelch-Oliver & Smith, 2015). While intrusiveness in terms of monitoring behavior and demanding unquestioned compliance have commonly been observed in African American families, aspects of psychological control, such as guilt induction or love withdrawal have not been reported as being a common feature of African American parenting (Gutman et al., 2017). Parental behavioral control within the context of African American families may be a form of racial socialization as parents recognize the long history of racial discrimination in the United States which puts their youth at increased risk for entering into the juvenile justice system (Burchinal, Skinner, & Reznick, 2010; Pezzella, Thornberry, & Smith, 2016). Importantly, however, while there may be parenting behaviors typically displayed by African American mothers, differences in the extent to which each parenting behavior is displayed across African American families have been found to be associated with adolescent functioning (Bean et al., 2006; Mandara & Pikes, 2008), and thus are worthy of further examination with regard to hopelessness, depression, and self-esteem among African American youth from single-mother families.

Family-Level Correlates of Hopelessness, Depression, and Self-Esteem

A robust literature has documented associations between parental warmth and lower levels of youth depression and hopelessness, as well as higher levels of self-esteem (Farruggia, Chen, Greenberger, Dmitrieva, & Macek, 2004; Khaleque, 2013; Plunkett, Williams, Schock, & Sands, 2007). Links between parental warmth and lower levels of depression and hopelessness, as well as higher levels of self-esteem, have also been found specifically among samples of African American families (Bean, Bush, McKenry, & Wilson, 2003; Plunkett, White, Carter, & Horner, 2016; Washington et al., 2017). Maternal warmth communicates a sense that a child is valued and also may be able to teach children how to better respond to negative emotions and traumatic events, allowing them to use adaptive rather than maladaptive coping skills, which may lead to lower levels of emotional difficulties (Shipman & Zeman, 2001; Watson et al., 2014).

Whether there is an association between parental monitoring, one form of behavioral control, and youth depression, hopelessness, or self-esteem is less clear. Some studies have found a negative association between monitoring and both depression and hopelessness (Bacchini, Miranda, & Affuso, 2011; Ceballo, Ramirez, Hearn, & Maltese, 2003; Sagrestano, Paikoff, Holmbeck, & Fendrich, 2003), while others have found no association between parental monitoring and depression (Garthe, Sullivan, & Kliewer, 2015; Hunter, Barber, & Stoltz, 2015). Of the few studies that have examined links between parental monitoring and self-esteem, monitoring has been linked to higher levels of self-esteem (Parker & Benson, 2005). Parental monitoring may be related to depression, hopelessness, and self-esteem as it can give youth a perception that they are valued, cared for, and worthy of being protected (Bacchini et al., 2011; Fröjd, Kaltiala-Heino, & Rimpelä, 2007).

The literature on parental psychological control as a predictor of youth outcomes has revealed findings in the reverse direction of those involving parental warmth and monitoring, with higher levels of psychological control being associated with higher levels of depression and lower self-esteem (Bean et. al, 2003; Frazer & Fite, 2016; Plunkett et al., 2016; Werner, Van der Graaff, Meeus, & Branje, 2016; Yildirim & Roopnarine, 2015). Among African American families, specifically, maternal psychological control has been linked to lower levels of self-esteem (Bean et al., 2003; Plunkett et al., 2016). Importantly, psychological control has been examined to a lesser extent as a predictor of hopelessness among African Americans specifically. Psychological control may be related to depression and self-esteem because it can inhibit children’s independence and autonomy (Barber, 1996).

In addition to parenting behaviors, particular demographic characteristics of mothers have been found to be associated with youth functioning. Having a mother with a higher level of educational attainment has been found to be associated with lower rates of depression among adolescents (Green, Zebrak, Fothergill, Robertson, & Ensminger, 2012), which may be related to the fact that higher levels of education often allow women to earn higher incomes, which is linked to lower levels of depression (Devenish, Hooley, & Mellor, 2017). Maternal age has also been found to be associated with depression in that younger maternal age has been linked to higher levels of depression among adolescents (Gaté et al., 2013). This association may be due to a greater ability of women who delay childbirth to earn a higher income, but also may be related to the idea that mothers who give birth to their first child during adolescence have a higher likelihood of having experienced depression when they were adolescents, which puts their own children at higher risk for depression through the mechanism of impaired parenting (Hammen, Brennan, & Le Brocque, 2011).

Individual-Level Correlates of Hopelessness, Depression, and Self-Esteem

Beyond risk and protective influences at the family level, assets at the individual level can also influence youth emotional functioning. Ethnic identity involves perceiving one’s ethnic group in positive terms, perceiving that group membership is a central part of one’s self-image, and feeling close to other group members (Rivas-Drake et al., 2014; Sellers, Smith, Shelton, Rowley, & Chavous, 1998). A growing literature demonstrates an association between positive ethnic identity and lower levels of depression among African American adolescents (Mandara, Gaylord-Harden, Richards, & Ragsdale, 2009; Neblett, Banks, Cooper, & Smalls-Glover, 2013; Street, Harris-Britt, & Walker-Barnes, 2009). Furthermore, a positive ethnic identity also has been linked to higher levels of self-esteem among diverse samples of adolescents, including African Americans (Gonzales-Backen et al., 2015; Hope, Chavous, Jagers, & Sellers, 2013). Ethnic identity has been linked to hopelessness among Latinx and Native American adolescents (Jaramillo, Mello, & Worrell, 2015; Romero, Piña-Watson, & Toomey, 2018), although this link has not been examined as often among African Americans, specifically. Ethnic identity may be linked to lower levels of hopelessness, depression, and self-esteem because it can increase belongingness and engender ethnic pride to buffer adolescents from the stress of discrimination and racism (Belgrave, Van Oss Marin, & Chambers, 2000; French, Seidman, Allen, & Aber, 2006).

In addition to a positive ethnic identity, some data suggest that higher rates of religiosity, such as internalization of religious beliefs and engaging in religion-based rituals, may protect youth from internalizing problems and promote self-esteem (Cole-Lewis, Gipson, Opperman, Arango, & King, 2016; Rose, Finigan-Carr, & Joe, 2017). Adolescents may rely on their faith to make sense of losses or life challenges, and these adaptive cognitive responses may lead to lower levels of depression and hopelessness and higher self-esteem (Chan, Tsai, & Fuligni, 2014; Lopez, Huynh, & Fuligni, 2011). In the African American community, historically and currently, religious faith and engagement in religious practices have been found to be helpful in coping with systematic oppression and prejudice, to be a source of social support, and to be a representation of cultural identity (Ani, 1980; Herndon, 2003; Lincoln & Mamiya, 1990). Importantly, however, religiosity is not always associated with better mental health among adolescents. Some studies have found no association between the two (Dew et al., 2008; Robins & Fiske, 2009), and others have found that negative religious coping strategies, such as viewing negative life events as punishment from God and passively deferring responsibility for one’s life circumstances to God, have been linked to higher rates of depression and anxiety (Ano & Vasconcelles, 2005; Terreri & Glenwick, 2013).

Demographic characteristics of adolescents may also be related to socio-emotional functioning. Adolescent gender is linked to both depression and self-esteem, with adolescent girls exhibiting higher levels of depression and lower self-esteem than adolescent boys (see Hyde, Mezulis, & Abramson, 2008; Zahn-Waxler, Shirtcliff, & Marceau, 2008; and Zuckerman, Li, & Hall, 2016, for reviews). However, gender differences in terms of depressive symptoms and self-esteem have not been as evident in African American adolescent samples. Some studies have found that African American adolescent girls report higher levels of depressive symptoms than boys (Carlson & Grant, 2008), while others have found no gender difference (Dunbar, Perry, Cavanaugh, & Leerkes, 2015). Similarly, gender differences in self-esteem have often been found to be smaller among African American adolescent samples than those among White samples or to not exist at all (Gaylord-Harden et al., 2007; Zuckerman et al., 2016). Regarding adolescent age, depression and hopelessness have been found to increase over time during adolescence among girls, but not boys (Ames, Wintre, & Flora, 2015; Burstein, Ginsburg, Petras, & Ialongo, 2010; Kouros & Garber, 2014). In addition, boys have been found to have higher levels of self-esteem than girls, in general, during adolescence, although girls experience a steeper increase in self-esteem as they get older than boys (Falci, 2011). These findings highlight the importance of examining both gender and age as correlates of hopelessness, depression, and self-esteem among adolescents.

This study will examine a compensatory resilience model of depression, hopelessness, and self-esteem in African American youth from single-mother homes, including family- and individual-level risk and protective factors. It was predicted that higher levels of two family-level protective factors maternal warmth and maternal monitoring, and lower levels of one family-level risk factor, maternal psychological control, would be associated with lower levels of depression and hopelessness and higher levels of self-esteem. In addition, it was expected that higher levels of two child-level protective factors—positive ethnic identity and religiosity—would also be associated with lower levels of hopelessness and depression and higher levels of self-esteem. Finally, it was predicted that hopelessness and self-esteem would mediate associations between family- and individual-level risk and protective factors and adolescent depressive symptoms.

Method

Overview

Data for the current study were drawn from African American Families and Children Together (AAFACT), designed to examine the role of extended family members in the health and well-being of African American youth from single-mother homes. African American single mother-headed families (n = 193) with an 11- to 16-year-old youth were recruited from counties across central North Carolina from 2005 to 2006. Recruitment was conducted through community agencies (e.g., health departments, YMCAs, churches), public events (e.g., health fairs), local advertisements (e.g., university-wide informational emails, bus displays, brochures), and word-of-mouth (e.g., participants telling other families about the project).

Participants

The mean age for participating youth (56% girls) was 13.39 years (SD = 1.59), with the mean age being similar for girls, 13.45, and boys, 13.31. On average, mothers were 39.04 (SD = 7.19) years of age (range = 26–64 years); approximately half (52%) completed some college/vocational school after high school/GED; the majority (83.5%) were employed; 27% were currently in school; and mean household incomes were $39,949 (SD = $19,202) per year. The average number of adults living in the home was 1.28 with a range of 1 to 4 adults living in the home.

Procedure

Interviews were conducted either at a conveniently located community site or in the family’s place of residence, depending on the individual needs of each family. In addition, childcare was provided on an as-needed basis. At the beginning of each interview, youth assent and parental consent was obtained. In order to maximize the confidentiality of the interviews and to reduce the potential for biased responses, adolescents and mothers completed structured interviews via Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Interviewing (ACASI) software, and participants’ answers were linked to an assigned number rather than to any form of identity. Respondents listened through earphones to prerecorded questions and recorded their answers via the computer mouse and keyboard. This approach helped to reduce the potential for interviewer influence, minimized the error that can result from varying literacy levels in the sample, and maximized confidentiality of the home or community interviews. The questionnaires assessed a variety of psychosocial variables, including the constructs of study in the current project, and took approximately 60 to 90 minutes to complete. Adolescents were compensated $10 for their participation.

Measures

Demographic Information

Mothers completed a demographic measure in which they provided information about themselves (e.g., maternal education), their children (e.g., child age), and their families (e.g., family income). Basic demographic information was also obtained from youth (e.g., gender, age).

Family-Level Protective and Risk Factors

Family-level protective factors included perceived maternal warmth/support and monitoring, and the family-level risk factor included was psychological control.

Youth report of parental warmth was measured using the 20-item short form of the Interaction Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ; Prinz, Foster, Kent, & O’Leary, 1979). Respondents report on whether a set of 20 behaviors is true or false of their mothers. An example item is, “When I try to tell her something she doesn’t let me finish.” The alpha for the current sample is 0.78. Responses were averaged to form a maternal warmth score.

Maternal monitoring was assessed using adolescent report on the Monitoring Measure developed by Stattin and Kerr (2000). Nine items assessed parental awareness of the adolescent’s whereabouts, activities, and relationships. The items were rated on a 5-point scale (0 = Not at all to 5 = Always). For the current sample, the alpha for the youth-report version of the measure was 0.90, and responses were averaged to form a maternal monitoring score.

The final dimension of parenting examined, maternal psychological control, was assessed using youth-report on the 8-item Psychological Control Scale (Barber, 1996). This scale assessed the extent of the parent’s psychological control over the youth, including the extent to which the parent constrained the youth’s verbal expression, invalidated the youth’s feelings, and directed personal attacks toward the youth. Adolescents were asked to rate how much the statements were like their mother, using a 3-point scale (0 = Not at all like her to 2 = A lot like her). For example, “Is always trying to change me.” The alpha for the current sample was 0.76. Responses on items were averaged to form a psychological control score.

Youth-Level Protective Factors

Two child-level protective factors were assessed: ethnic identity and religiosity.

Adolescents completed the 13-item Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM; Phinney, 1992) to assess how they feel about or react to their African American ethnicity. An example item is, “I have a clear sense of my ethnic background and what it means for me.” The response options are on a 4-point Likert-type scale (1 = Strongly disagree to 4 = Strongly agree). The MEIM has demonstrated validity and reliability within African American adolescent populations similar to that of the current study (Simons et al., 2002). The alpha for the current study was 0.89. Responses to the items were averaged to create an adolescent ethnic identity score.

Adolescents completed the 10-item Religiosity Scale (Ball, Armistead, & Austin, 2003) using a Likert-type response format with items reflecting both the degree of religious beliefs (e.g., “Do you believe in God?”) and frequency of religious behaviors (e.g., “How often do you pray?”). Prior research demonstrates adequate validity and reliability (Ball et al., 2003). The alpha for the current study was 0.78. Since the response scale varied for the items (e.g., 0 = definitely no to 2 = definitely yes for some items, 0 = not religious at all to 3 = very religious for other items), responses to the items were summed to create a total religiosity scale score.

Depressive Symptoms

The Withdrawn/Depressed, subscale from the Youth Self Report (YSR; Achenbach, 1991), with the omission of item 91, (“I think about killing myself”), was used to measure youth depressive symptoms. For each item, youths use a 3-point Likert-type scale to rate how well the item describes them during the past 6 months (0 = not true, 1 = somewhat true, or 2 = very true). The alpha coefficient in the current sample was 0.70. Responses to items on were averaged to a depression score.

Hopelessness

Hopelessness was measured using a version of the Beck Hopelessness Scale (Beck, 1988), adapted for adolescents. This 20-item self-report measure consists of true–false statements that measured the adolescents’ level of pessimism or negativity about the future (e.g., 0 = True and 1 = False). The alpha for the current sample was 0.72. An average was taken across responses to items to form a hopelessness score.

Self-Esteem

Adolescents completed the 10-item Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). An example is “I feel I do not have much to be proud of.” The response options for all items are 0 = strongly disagree to 3 = strongly agree. The alpha in the current sample was 0.75. Scores on the items were averaged to form a self-esteem score.

Plan of Analyses

All analyses were conducted using SPSS v. 25 package. Preliminary analyses were conducted to provide descriptive statistics and correlations for the major study variables. Next, due to the theoretical relations among hopelessness, depression, and self-esteem, a multivariate multiple linear regression was run including significant predictor variables in the bivariate correlations as independent variables and hopelessness, depression, and self-esteem as dependent variables. Finally, parallel mediation models were run in which significant predictors of hopelessness and self-esteem in the multivariate multiple linear regression models were modeled as predictors of depression with hopelessness and self-esteem modeled as mediators. Mediation analyses were conducted using the process mediation macro in SPSS, which utilizes bootstrapping to generate a sampling distribution of the indirect effect in ordinary least squares regression-based path analysis to produce confidence intervals for mediation effects (Hayes, 2018). Five thousand bootstraps were run in the current analyses.

Results

Preliminary Analyses

Means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations for participant demographics and major study variables are presented in Table 1. Consistent with the family-level hypotheses, lower levels of perceived psychological control were associated with lower levels of depression, socio-emotional, r = 0.33, p < .01; and hopelessness, r = 0.31, p < .01; and with higher levels of self-esteem, r = −0.24, p < .01. Higher levels of perceived maternal warmth were associated with lower levels of hopelessness, r = −0.17, p < .05, but not with youth depression or self-esteem. Perceived maternal monitoring was associated with lower levels of hopelessness, r = −0.33, p < .01, and higher levels of youth self-esteem, r = 0.38, p < .01. In addition, maternal age was significantly associated with all indicators, such that children with older mothers had lower levels of depression, r = −0.19, p < .01; and hopelessness, r = −0.20, p < .01; and higher self-esteem, r = 0.26, p < .01. Therefore, we also included maternal age in the subsequent multivariate multiple regression. Maternal education level was not associated with the three outcome variables.

Table 1.

Sample Demographics and Descriptive Statistics of Major Study Variables.

	M or n (%)	SD	Range	1.	2.	3.	4.	5.	6.	7.	8.	9.	10.	11.
Household income	$29, 733	$17, 456
1. Adol. age	13.39	1.59
2. Adol. gender females	106 (55%)			.05
3. Maternal age	38.8	6.67	26–64	.31**	−.01
4. Maternal education years	14.74	2.37	8–20	−.02	−.07	−.01
5. Maternal psychological control avg.	0.48	0.39	0–1.63	.04	.04	.04	.15*
6. Maternal monitoring avg.	3.40	0.46	1–4	−.10	.14^a	−.04	.14^a	−.18*
7. Maternal warmth avg.	0.88	0.36	0.05–3.25	−.11	.01	−.01	.08	−.25**	.16*
8. Adol. ethnic identity avg.	2.80	0.54	0–3	.05	.11	.20**	.18*	.01	.41**	−.01
9. Adol. religiosity total	25.02	5.83	10–36	−.13	.07	−.12	.16*	−.12	.18*	.11	.30**
10. Hopeless. avg.	0.12	0.15	0–0.86	−.01	−.06	−.20**	−.11	.31**	−.30**	−.17*	−.29**	−.14^a
11. Withdrawn avg.	0.38	0.32	0–1.38	.03	−.02	−.19**	.03	.33**	−.04	−.12	−.15*	.04	.39**
12. Adol. self-esteem avg.	3.46	0.39	0.60–3.00	.05	−.03	.26**	.13^a	−.24**	.38**	.11	.33**	.13^a	−.53**	−.40**

Note. Adol. = Adolescent, avg. = average; Hopeless. = hopelessness, ^a = p < .10, * = p < .05, ** = p < .01.

In regard to youth-level protective factors, preliminary correlations indicated that positive ethnic identity was associated with lower levels of withdrawal/depression, r = −0.15, p < .05; and hopelessness, r = −0.29, p < .01; and with higher levels of self-esteem, r = 0.33, p < .01. Neither religiosity nor youth gender were associated with the three outcomes and, thus, we did not include them in the multivariate multiple regression model.

Primary Analyses

Multivariate Multiple Regression

To examine the multilevel predictors of hopelessness, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms, we conducted a multivariate multiple regression, which accounts for covariance of error terms of outcomes believed to be correlated (Johnson & Wichern, 2007). The results of the multivariate multiple regression predicting hopelessness, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms are found in Table 2. Maternal age, F (3) = 4.29, p < .05; perceived maternal psychological control, F (3) = 8.72, p < .01; perceived maternal monitoring, F (3) = 9.70, p < .01; and adolescent ethnic identity, F (3) = 4.57, p < .01, were all significantly related to the set of outcomes, hopelessness, self-esteem, and depression. Follow-up univariate regressions were conducted to examine the directionality of the associations. After controlling for maternal age, higher levels of perceived maternal psychological control, β = .31, p < .01; lower levels of perceived maternal monitoring, β = −.17, p < .05; and lower levels of adolescent ethnic identity, β = −.29, p < .01, were significantly associated with higher levels of adolescent hopelessness. In addition, after controlling for maternal age, lower levels of perceived maternal psychological control, β = −.28, p < .01, and higher levels of adolescent ethnic identity, β = .34, p < .01, were significantly associated with higher levels of self-esteem. Finally, after controlling for maternal age, higher levels of perceived maternal psychological control were significantly associated with higher levels of adolescent depressive symptoms, β = .35, p < .01.

Table 2.

Multivariate Multiple Regression Examining Family- and Individual-Level Predictors of Adolescent Hopelessness, Depression and Self-Esteem.

Multivariate	df	F	Pillai’s Trace	Hotelling’s Trace	p
Maternal age	3	4.29	0.07	0.08	.01
Maternal psychological control	3	8.72	0.14	0.16	.00
Maternal monitoring	3	9.70	0.15	0.18	.00
Maternal warmth	3	0.69	0.01	0.01	.56
Adolescent ethnic identity	3	4.57	0.08	0.09	.00
			Univariate
Hopelessness	Sum of Squares	F
Maternal age	0.05	3.09			.08
Maternal psychological control	0.22	12.65			.00
Maternal monitoring	0.08	4.81			.03
Maternal warmth	0.03	1.93			.17
Adolescent ethnic identity	0.17	9.80			.00
Self-esteem
Maternal age	1.88	12.93			.00
Maternal psychological control	1.48	10.20			.00
Maternal monitoring	1.88	12.90			.00
Maternal warmth	0.11	0.76			.38
Adolescent ethnic identity	1.41	9.72			.00
Depression
Maternal age	0.28	3.45			.07
Maternal psychological control	1.76	21.61			.00
Maternal monitoring	0.25	3.04			.08
Maternal warmth	0.05	0.65			.42
Adolescent ethnic identity	0.33	4.08			.05

Mediation Analyses

Next, we examined whether hopelessness and self-esteem mediated associations between significant psychosocial predictors of hopelessness and self-esteem, including maternal psychological control, maternal monitoring, and adolescent ethnic identity, and depressive outcomes. The models examined can be found in Figure 1. Self-esteem was a significant mediator of the association between maternal psychological control and depressive symptoms, indirect effect = .09, confidence interval .05 to .16; as well as of the association between maternal monitoring and depressive symptoms, indirect effect = −.07, confidence interval –.11 to –.04 and the association between adolescent ethnic identity and depressive symptoms, indirect effect = −.07, confidence interval –.12 to –.03. Hopelessness was not a significant mediator of the associations between any of the significant predictors, maternal psychological control, maternal monitoring, and adolescent ethnic identity, and adolescent depressive symptoms.

Discussion

This study examined a compensatory resilience model of socio-emotional functioning, including child- and family-level risk and protective factors, among African American youth from single-mother homes. Findings partially supported study hypotheses. Risk and protective factors at the family level, lower levels of perceived maternal psychological control and higher levels of perceived maternal monitoring, respectively, were associated with lower levels of youth hopelessness and depressive symptoms and with higher self-esteem. In addition, one protective factor at the individual level, youth positive ethnic identity, also was associated with lower levels of youth hopelessness and depressive symptoms and with higher self-esteem. In addition, self-esteem mediated the associations between the significant predictors (i.e., maternal psychological control, maternal monitoring, and youth ethnic identity) and depression.

Lower levels of perceived maternal psychological control, a family-level risk factor, were associated with lower levels of hopelessness and depressive symptoms and higher levels of self-esteem among youth in this sample. This study joins a growing literature examining associations between parental psychological control and depression among African American adolescents (Kincaid, Jones, Cuellar, & Gonzalez, 2011; Mandara & Pikes, 2008). The results of this study suggest the unique relevance of assessing the impact of psychological control on hopelessness and self-esteem, as well as depressive symptoms, among African American youth from single-mother homes. In addition, maternal monitoring, a protective factor in the model, was significantly associated with youth self-esteem. The development of self-esteem in children is partly a result of caregivers demonstrating their belief in the worth and value of their children (Cooley, 1922; Harter, Waters, & Whitesell, 1998). Therefore, it is possible that maternal monitoring was seen as one way that parents communicate their belief in the value of their children. This reflected sense of value can then help adolescents develop a sense of self-worth. On the other hand, maternal warmth, another hypothesized family-level protective factor, was not significantly associated with depression, hopelessness, or with self-esteem within the multivariate multiple regression. Although there is a considerable amount of support for warmth as an essential component of “positive parenting” for youth regardless of ethnic/racial background or socioeconomic status (Amato & Fowler, 2002; Rivas-Drake et al., 2014), particular historical and societal contexts may influence the particular expression, communication and delivery of maternal warmth that are the most salient expressions of warmth in specific cultural or ethnic groups (Jackson-Newsom, Buchanan, & McDonald, 2008; Smalls, 2010; Simons, Simons, & Su, 2013). Therefore, the absence of a significant association between maternal warmth and youth outcomes in this study warrants further examination of the cultural meaning and significance of maternal warmth as a construct among African American youth.

This study also found that positive ethnic identity, a hypothesized protective factor, was related to hopelessness, depression, and self-esteem among African American youths. These findings are consistent with related theory and research which notes the importance of ethnic identity development for overall psychological functioning among children and adolescents (Phinney, 2005). In turn, developing a positive sense of and feelings toward your ethnic/racial group and, in essence, yourself, can be potentially protective against maladjustment (i.e., internalizing symptoms) (see Rivas-Drake et al., 2014 for a review). Importantly, adolescent religiosity was not associated with adolescent hopelessness, depressive symptoms, or self-esteem at the bivariate level, so we did not include it a as a correlate in the multivariate models. It could be the case that beneficial (e.g., social support) (Chan et al., 2014) and risk-enhancing (e.g., self-blame) (Terreri & Glenwick, 2013) aspects of religiosity canceled out the effects of each other in this study, since a measure of overall religiosity was used. Future work on socio-emotional functioning of African American adolescents should consider examining aspects of religiosity (e.g., positive cognitive coping, diminished personal agency in favor of relying on God) separately to delineate specific associations between health promoting and risky aspects of religiosity, on the one hand, and internalizing symptoms and self-esteem, on the other.

Finally, this study found that self-esteem, but not hopelessness, mediated associations between family- and individual-level factors, maternal psychological control, maternal monitoring, and adolescent ethnic identity, and depressive symptoms. This finding suggests that the mechanism through which protective and risk factors affect depressive symptoms among African American youth from single-mother families is their general sense of self-worth, and not through effects on their cognitive attributional styles. The finding in regards to self-esteem is in line with a robust literature demonstrating the role of healthy self-esteem as a proximal predictor of lower levels of depression, including among African American adolescents (Gaylord-Harden et al., 2007; Prelow, Weaver, & Swenson, 2006). Given this was one of the first studies to examine hopelessness as a mediator of associations between family and individual correlates and youth depressive symptoms among the population studied, additional research is needed to provide a better understanding of the role of hopelessness in the overall of emotional functioning of African American youth from single-mother families.

Of note, this study contributes to a growing literature demonstrating small or absent gender differences in levels of depression, hopelessness, and self-esteem among African American adolescents (Gaylord-Harden et al., 2007). These findings highlight the importance of culturally-specific conceptual models. Traditional gender norms in the United States have associated femininity with passivity and a lack of personal agency, and pressures to exhibit these traits have been identified as potential causes of lower feelings of self-worth among girls than boys during adolescence (Gentile et al., 2009; Zuckerman et al., 2016). Within the African American community, femininity may be associated with other qualities, such as responsibility and assertiveness, which may lead to feelings of self-confidence and mastery (Johnson, 2013; Settles, Pratt-Hyatt, & Buchanan, 2008; Theran, 2009). In turn, these internal views of oneself may result in less decrease in self-esteem or increase in depression or hopelessness related to gender roles such that these indicators of socio-emotional functioning may be similar across African American girls and boys.

The findings of the current study must be considered in light of the limitations. First, this study examined a unidirectional association between predictors (e.g., parenting, youth assets) and youth outcomes (e.g., problem behavior, internalizing) and thus did not examine the potential transactional nature between the primary study variables. There is widespread acknowledgement that youth characteristics impact parenting behavior, for example, and that there is a dynamic and reciprocal pattern characterizing the complex nature of the parent-child relationship (Coley, Votruba-Drzal, & Schindler, 2009; Sameroff, 2009). Future work should examine the possibility that higher levels of self-esteem may be associated higher adolescent disclosure to parents increasing parental knowledge and ability to monitor. Second, the study relied on only one method: adolescent-report on maternal parenting and their own functioning. Reports from other individuals and observations would help decrease the chance that common method variance is responsible for the findings. Third, this study did not examine variations in relationships between predictors and youth outcomes among specific age groups (e.g., early, middle, or late adolescence). Fourth, this study may have had somewhat low power to detect significant associations given its sample size of n = 193. Fifth, the internal reliability of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale found in this study, .75, was slightly lower than the range, .77 to .88, typically found in studies of adolescents (Farruggia et al., 2004; Keane & Loades, 2017). Finally, this study utilized cross-sectional approach, which did not allow for the determination of causality.

Several strengths of this study also merit attention. Despite the fact that a growing percentage (55% to 66%) of African American youth are being raised in single-parent households (Casey Foundation, 2017; U.S. Census 2012), African American children from single-mother families—the subject of the current study—are underrepresented in the literature on parenting and youth outcomes. Second, the study offers further support for the relationship between psychological control and psychosocial adjustment problems in African American families and suggests that the construct is worthy of further attention by interventionists. Few studies have examined relations among depression, hopelessness, and self-esteem in models of the influence of parenting behaviors on African American adolescents, or African American youth from single-mother families, specifically, as was done in this study. Finally, the study examined multiple levels of protective factors; in addition to parenting practices, this study contributed to the growing literature that provides support for looking at individual assets as protective factors for African American youth. In this study, ethnic identity was found to be significantly associated with lower levels of hopelessness and higher levels of self-esteem among African American youth from single-mother homes. These findings have the potential to serve in the planning of future intervention and prevention programs to facilitate healthy psychosocial adjustment among youth from single-parent families.

Although African American youth from single-mother homes are at increased risk for emotional difficulties, there are many adolescents who continue to thrive despite elevated risk. This study sought to use a compensatory resilience framework to identify family- and individual-level risk and protective factors at work among resilient youth in this sample. Parenting practices that were linked to the most beneficial emotional functioning included a protective factor at the family-level, maternal monitoring; a risk factor at the family-level, maternal psychological control; and a protective factor, or asset, at the individual level, adolescent ethnic identity. Future parenting interventions may, in turn, benefit from including psychological control as a target of intervention for reducing internalizing symptoms and enhancing self-esteem, as well as behavioral control for supporting self-esteem. Further work is needed to elucidate the potential cultural differences in the expression and perception of maternal warmth, as well as increasing sensitivity to racial/ethnic differences by exploring alternate parenting typologies and paradigms. Specifically, future studies should consider latent class analysis in order to elucidate potentially unique parenting practices with regard to the expression of warmth among ethnic minority families. This study provides additional support for an individual-level target of intervention among African American youth from single-mother families, the development of a positive ethnic identity, which may be beneficial for reducing depression and hopelessness and also for enhancing self-esteem. Finally, this study helps highlight the unique potential role for a healthy self-esteem to have a cascading effect in promoting less depression among African American youth from single-mother families.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funding for this study was provided to Dr. Jones through an Ethnicity and Health Outcomes grant and a University of North Carolina University Research Council grant.

ORCID iD

Emma M. Sterrett-Hong

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