Racial Identity Attitudes as Predictors of Cognitive Correlates of Social anxiety in African Americans

The relationship between racial identity attitudes derived from Crossis (1978) theory of Racial Identity Development, the cognitive correlates of social anxiety, and indices of psychological functioning were explored. Subjects were 101 African American college students. Preencounter, Encounter and Immersion attitudes were all positively related to increased personal distress as indicated by positive relations to fear of negative evaluation, social avoidance and distress, and negative relation to indices of healthy psychological functioning. Internalization attitudes were indicative of healthy psychological functioning as indicated by negative relations to measures of social anxiety and positive relations to indices of healthy psychological functioning. Implications for future research and service delivery to African American populations are discussed.