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Category: Project

Description: Gun violence is an urgent public health issue that disproportionately impacts African American youth (CDC, 2016). Research on the motivations underlying youth decisions to carry guns suggests that solutions should address social norms and structural inequities that foster community violence (Bergenstein et al., 1996; Fontaine, 2018). In this study, we will use engineer a gun violence prevention program using design thinking methods and use a gold-standard, double-blind, RCT to assess the effectiveness of the intervention, relative to a control condition based directly on current best practices in gun violence prevention (Yeager et al., 2016; Bryan et al., 2016; Bryan, Yeager & Hinojosa, 2019). Our intervention is expected to prevent the potential motivation to carry a gun from developing in early adolescence, before most young boys have their first personal encounters with guns (Hemenway et al., 1996). Guns are often regarded as a protective tool and symbol of power by young boys who must navigate dangerous neighborhoods (Fontaine et al., 2018; Stewart & Simons, 2010; Wilkinson, 2003). The intervention will reframe gun violence as the result of structural racism and a tool of ongoing oppression against African American communities (Alexander, 2012; Frazer et al., 2018; Bailey et al., 2017; Taibbi, 2017). The intervention message would describe how structural forms of oppression undermine the power of communities of color. This information is expected to be powerful because it resonates with adolescents' developmentally-heightened drive for autonomy from external control and the pursuit of prosocial purpose (Damon, Menon, & Bronk, 2003; Yeager et al., 2017). This framing may be especially compelling among African American adolescents because their disproportionate experience with discrimination contributes to an early ability to engage in sophisticated arguments about oppression and is associated with a sense of collective responsibility to take action (e.g., Hope, 2016; Hope, Skoog, & Jagers, 2016). Importantly, a complementary mechanism by which we expect to reduce the risk of being exposed to gun violence is by providing an appealing purpose for youth to participate in constructive, civic-oriented activities through local community organizations. We will channel participants' motivation to take prosocial action by presenting civic engagement as a meaningful strategy to reclaim power and achieve racial justice for themselves and their community. Under this context, civic engagement is expected to take on new symbolic significance-to be seen as an act of righteous resistance against an unjust system. Civic engagement is an especially fitting solution because it has been shown to be an adaptive coping mechanism for facing community violence and racial discrimination (Banerjee, Rowley, & Johnson, 2014; Hope & Spencer, 2017). Youth participation in local civic engagement activities is expected to promote identified behavioral factors that lower the risk of gun carrying and exposure to guns, such as spending time in structured activities with adult mentors and peers who disapprove of gun use (O'Brien, Daffern, Chu, & Thomas, 2013; Krug et al., 2002; Wilkinson et al., 2009; Valois et al., 2002).