Africentric Cultural Identity and the Stress Experience of African American College Students

Abstract

The purpose of this analysis was to determine if there were distinct behavioral profiles involving perceived and daily stress and Africentric identity in a sample of 701 African American college students who attended eight historically Black colleges and universities. It was hypothesized that there would be a negative relationship between Africentric identity and stress and other personality dispositions that are often associated with stress, such as depression and anger A cluster analysis resulted in three cluster groups. The most efficacious cluster group had significantly higherAfricentric identity, self-esteem, and angercontrol, and lower perceived stress, suppressed anger, experienced anger, and depression. Although Africentric identity and stress were not correlated, the cluster with the highest level of Africentric identity exhibited the lowest level of perceived stress.