Resilience to risk-taking behaviors in impoverished African American girls: the role of mother-daughter connectedness

Abstract

Rates of risk behaviors (e.g., violence, substance use) for impoverished girls are exceedingly high. Some view their future pessimistically, decreasing their resilience to avoid risky behaviors. Others resist such behaviors. Connectedness with an adult promotes this resilience, but how is unclear. The purpose of this secondary analysis was to investigate the relationships among connectedness to mother, time perspective, and resilience to risk-taking behaviors in impoverished African American girls ages 11-15. Structural equation modeling was used to cross-validate this model. In contrast to the results found in earlier studies, no direct relationship emerged between maternal connectedness and resilience. Instead, future time perspective was the key mediator between connectedness and resilience. These findings suggest that an important aspect of interventions to foster resilience to risk behaviors in young girls could be to assist their mothers in developing a connected relationship with their daughters that would promote a future time perspective.