Assessing Black Women’s Use of Culturally Specific Ways of Coping

There is a need for additional research that intentionally utilizes an African-centered approach when examining the psychological experiences of African/Black people. Therefore, the current study utilized an African-centered psychological measurement to assess the degree to which Black women endorse culturally specific coping strategies. Specifically, the Africultrual Coping Systems Inventory (ACSI) was utilized to measure Black women’s use of collective coping, spiritual-centered coping, ritual-centered coping, and cognitive emotional debriefing. 282 cisgender women who self-identified as African American/Black (M_age = 20) completed the ACSI measure. By conducting an exploratory analysis, results indicated that the Black women in the sample were less likely to utilize ritual-centered coping (M = 1.54, SD = 2.07), more likely to utilize cognitive emotional debriefing (M = 12.04, SD = 8.46), and equally utilized spiritual-centered coping (M = 7.40, SD = 6.07) and collective coping (M = 7.39, SD = 5.83). Overall, this study can provide important implications for Black women’s health and wellness by explicitly outlining how culturally relevant coping strategies can aid in supporting Black women’s mental health and well-being.