Date of Award
Spring 2011
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Counseling (MAC)
Department
College of Education, Department of Counseling and Special Education
First Advisor
Darrick Tovar-Murray, Ph.D.
Abstract
Given the prevalence of racism on African American men's psychological well-being and their high level of cultural mistrust, understanding factors that may have influenced their help-seeking behaviors and attitudes can be an important area of inquiry. If counselors and other professionals highlight factors that influence African American men's helping seeking behaviors they can develop outreach efforts to better serve this population and increase their counseling utilization rates. Existing literature has indicated that cultural mistrust, identity, and locus of control could play vital roles in the help-seeking behaviors and attitudes of African American men and has had implications for the counseling profession (Phelps et al., 2001). However, the interplay among these variables on African American men's help-seeking behaviors needs further exploration. Therefore, this research wanted to explore to what extent cultural mistrust, African Self-Consciousness, and locus of control predict African AMerican men's help-seeking behaviors, after controlling for the variables of age, education and close-knit community.
The present study added to the emergent literature on help-seeking behaviors by exploring the quantitative experiences of a homogenous groups of African American men who have sought counseling services and their views on cultural mistrust, locus of control, and identity as it relates to past and present help-seeking behaviors. The study investigated the relationships between cultural mistrust as measured by the Cultural Mistrust Inventory (Terrell and Terrell, 1981), identity as measured by the African Self-Consciousness Scale (Baldwin and Bell, 1985), locus of control as measured by Rotter (1966), and help-seeking behaviors as measured by Fisher and Farina's (1995) Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Help.
Recommended Citation
Holley, Leslie D., "Help-Seeking Behaviors of African American Men" (2011). College of Education Theses and Dissertations. 15.
https://via.library.depaul.edu/soe_etd/15