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Parents' racial socialization messages, including messages focused on awareness, preparation, and strategies for managing racial discrimination, are necessary to help African American youth successfully navigate their daily lives. However, mixed findings regarding the utility of preparation for bias messages for African American youth's mental health adjustment raise questions about the conditions under which these protective racial socialization messages are most beneficial to African American youth. The current study examined the degree to which communication and trust as well as anger and alienation in the mother-adolescent relationship moderated associations between 2 types of preparation for bias messages, cultural alertness to discrimination and cultural coping with antagonism, and adolescent mental health. Participants were 106 African American adolescents (57% female; mean age = 15.41) who reported about their receipt of racial socialization messages, mother-adolescent relationship quality, and depressive symptoms. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that positive associations between cultural alertness to racial discrimination and youth depressive symptoms were weaker for boys in the context of higher mother-adolescent communication and trust; communication and trust were not similarly protective for girls. For boys, the positive associations between cultural coping with antagonism messages and depressive symptoms were stronger in the context of high anger and alienation in the mother-adolescent relationship. Findings suggest that qualities of the mother-adolescent relationship, in which preparation for bias messages are delivered, are important for understanding the mental health adjustment of African American adolescents.

Urban African American youth's disproportionate exposure to community violence and increased risk for its adverse consequences have heightened interest in identifying protective factors that mitigate the effects of community violence exposure for these youth. Thus, the present study examined whether maternal racial socialization messages protect African American adolescents against the adverse effects of community violence exposure. Participants were a community sample of African American adolescents (N = 106; mean age = 15.41 years) and their female guardians. For community-violence-exposed youth, maternal racial socialization messages protected against aggressive behaviors and depressive symptoms, such that maternal messages about cultural pride attenuated the association between community violence exposure and parent-reported aggressive behaviors, and cultural appreciation of legacy messages attenuated the association between community violence exposure and adolescent-reported depressive symptoms. Findings highlight the need to integrate race-relevant factors into preventive interventions targeting African American youth at risk for or exposed to community violence, and suggest that family interventions promoting parents' efficacy to implement racial socialization practices are useful for youth exposed to violence.