This article describes the development and validation of the Africultural Coping Systems Inventory (ACSI). The ACSI is a 30-item measure of the culture-specific coping strategies used by African Americans in stressful situations and is grounded in an African-centered conceptual framework. Findings from a principal components factor analysis conducted with a sample of African American adults (N = 180) supported a four-factor model as best representing the culture-specific coping behaviors of the group. A content review of the factors suggested the following dimensions of coping behaviors: cognitive/emotional debriefing, spiritual-centered coping, collective coping, and ritual-centered coping. Using a separate sample of African Americans (N = 220), the ACSI was subjected to a confirmatory factor analytic procedure to establish whether the four-dimension model of coping adequately fit the data. This procedure indicated that the four-factor oblique model was the best fit. The ACSI also demonstrated adequate internal consistency and concurrent validity. The authors discuss limitations of the study and implications for future research.

This investigation examined the role of culture-specific coping in relation to resilient outcomes in African Americans from high-risk urban communities. Participants (N = 385) were administered a survey questionnaire packet containing measures of culture-specific coping, traditional resilience factors (cognitive ability, social support, and familial factors), and resilient outcomes (physical, psychological, social, and environmental quality of life). Structural equation modeling was used to test the degree to which culture-specific coping would uniquely contribute to the prediction of quality of life above and beyond traditional predictive factors of resilience. Findings indicated that spiritual and collective coping were statistically significant predictors of quality of life outcomes above and beyond the traditional predictive factors. Overall, the findings indicated that both traditional and cultural factors were predictors of resilient outcomes (i.e., positive quality of life indicators) for African Americans.

This study examines the antecedent factors affecting the quality of life of African Americans. A theoretical model is proposed that identifies the effects of culture-specific coping and spiritual well-being as predictors of quality of life. A sample of 281 African Americans was administered a battery of questionnaires that examined the constructs of interest. The theoretical model was tested within a structural equation—modeling framework to identify both direct and indirect effects. Results indicate overall model fit, with both culture-specific coping and spiritual well-being as significant predictors of quality of life. Spiritual well-being partially mediated the effects of culture-specific coping on quality of life. The article concludes with a discussion of the study's findings in relation to quality of life issues for African Americans.

This study examined the psychometric properties of a revised version of the Colonial Mentality Scale in a sample Ghanaian young adults (CMS-G; N = 431). In addition, the degree to which mental health and self-and group-concept was effected by internalized notions of colonial mentality was assessed. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to evaluate the underlying factor structure of the CMS-G. The findings indicated that the CMS-G produced a four-factor orthogonal model as best representing the construct of colonial mentality among Ghanaian young adults. CMS-G scores correlated in the anticipated direction with self-esteem, collective self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. Additional analyses indicated that Ghanaian young adults endorsed colonial mentality items associated with

T he Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS; Ellison, 1983) is a popular and widely used measure of subjective well-being and overall life satisfaction. Since its development the SWBS has been used for research purposes in a variety of settings (e.g., university, community, clinical, religious), and with diverse participant groups (e.g., psychiatric, community, college students, persons with cancer, and persons with HIV/AIDS). A review of the health, subjective well-being, and spirituality literature revealed that the instrument is increasingly popular with researchers studying quality-of-life issues among African Americans. Despite this increasing popularity, there have been few efforts aimed at evaluating the instrument's psychometric integrity with African American populations. One study, conducted by Miller, Fleming, & Brown-Anderson (1998), compared the underlying factor structure of the SWBS in a sample of Caucasian American and African American participants. Their findings indicated that a three-factor SWBS model best fit the data for the Caucasian American sample while a fivefactor model emerged for the African American sample. The current study was a confirmatory test of the Miller et al (1998) five-factor solution and several alternative SWBS models with a community sample of African Americans. The SWBS is a 20-item paper and pencil selfreport measure of well-being that consists of the following three dimensions: (a) religious well-being (RWB), (b) existential well-being (EWB), and (c) overall spiritual well-being (SWB; Paloutzian & Ellison, 1982). Building on the conceptual work of Moberg (1971), Ellison and his colleagues (Ellison, 1983; Paloutzian & Ellison, 1979, 1983) developed the SWBS to capture both the vertical and horizontal nature of spiritual well-being. The vertical component assesses spiritual well-being in relation to an individual's relationship with God. A sample item for this domain is, "My relation with God contributes to my sense of well-being." The horizontal component, however, assesses one's sense of purpose and satisfaction with life, absent any religious dimension. A sample item from this domain includes, "I believe there is some real purpose for my life." Items on the SWBS are rated on a 6-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 to 6 (1 = strongly agree