Mental health professionals' views of afro-american family life and sexuality

Abstract

The Survey of Afro-American Behavior (S.A.A.B.) is a scale devised for specific use with mental health professionals to assess the affective and cognitive components of attitudes toward positive (favorable), negative (unfavorable), factual and stereotypic statements regarding Afro-American behavior in seven areas, two of which are examined in this paper: 1) family life patterns and marital relationships, and 2) sexual values and behavior. Significant differences on the factual and stereotypic items emerged among six groups of therapists divided by age and sex. There were statistically significant differences on family life and marital relationship items between the means of Afro-Americans over 45 years of age, who agreed more with positive statements, and Anglo-Americans under 35 years of age; and on sexual issues each of the three groups of Afro-Americans agreed more with the factual statements than three groups of Anglo-American cohorts. Sexual values and belief statements were the most controversial area of knowledge both within and between the two ethnic groups. The implications of this study are discussed in terms of prevention and early intervention programs for Afro-American communities with particular emphasis on the necessary training of mental health professionals to work effectively with Afro-Americans.

Race and gender differences in black and white newlyweds’ perceptions of sexual and marital relations

“…Moreover, we will be able to explore hypotheses about how these perceptions may change over the earlyyears of marriage for Black and White newlyweds. As several researchers (Powell, Wyatt, & Bass, 1983;Timberlake & Carpenter, 1990) have pointed out, we still have much to learn both about Black attitudes about sexuality and about the sociocultural factors that differentially affect sexual attitudes and behaviors for Whites and Blacks.…”

Effects of Victim and Defendant Race on Jurors' Decisions in Child Sexual Abuse Cases1

“…Negative stereotypes of Black Americans in our culture are widespread and well documented (e.g., Brigham, 1972;Devine, 1989;Landrine, 1985;Niemann, Jennings, Rozelle, Baxter, & Sullivan, 1994;Weinberg & Williams, 1988;Wyatt, 1982Wyatt, , 1985Wyatt, , 1990. Stereotypes of Blacks include sexual information: beliefs that Blacks are more sexually promiscuous than are Whites (Powell, Wyatt, & Bass, 1983;Weinberg & Williams, 1988;Wyatt, 1982), sexually perverse (Devine, 1989), and more sexually experienced (Wyatt, 1982). Sexual stereotypes also include beliefs about the development of sexuality and sexual experience; namely, that Blacks learn about and engage in premarital sex at early ages (Wyatt, 1982).…”

“…In fact, contrary to predictions, victims were perceived to be more credible when the defendant was portrayed as White than when he was portrayed as Black. Perhaps this is because child sexual assault is perceived to be a crime perpetrated predominantly by Whites, in spite of negative sexual stereotypes that have been documented for Blacks (Devine, 1989;Powell et al, 1983;Weinberg & Williams, 1988;Wyatt, 1982). In fact, in a case vignette study, Jackson and Nuttall (1993) found that clinicians (race unspecified) perceived a White defendant as more likely to be a child sexual abuse perpetrator than a Black or Hispanic defendant.…”

Effects of defendant and victim race on perceptions of juvenile sex offenders

“…That is, women may have perceived the White victim as sexually innocent and the Black victim as sexually experienced, or even promiscuous. In fact, negative stereotypes about Black people include that they are more sexually experienced, promiscuous, and perverse than White people (Devine, 1989;Powell, Wyatt, & Bass, 1983;Weinberg & Williams, 1988;Wyatt, 1982). To the extent that non-Black women were more likely to label the sex act as a sexual offense for the White victim than the Black victim, it follows that they, in turn, would perceive re-offense as more plausible when the victim was White than Black.…”