Appraisal of Sociopolitical Change Among South African Youth: The Relation to Psychological...

Appraisal of Sociopolitical Change Among South African Youth: The Relation to Psychological

Maladjustment1

MICHELLE SLONE~ Tel AvN Universify

Tel Aviv, Israel

DEBRA KAMINER Universiw of the Western Cape

Cape Town, South Africa

KEVIN DURRHEIM Unrversify of Natal

Durban, South Africa

The study aimed to assess the emotional effects of appraisals of the South African sociopolitical transition among adolescents. The central hypothesis predicted a direct relation between negativity of appraisals and psychological maladjustment indexes. Participants were 540 adolescents (Black and White), relatively evenly divided by race, gender, and school grade level. Appraisals were quantifiably measured using the Sociopolitical Change Scale (SCS), which was developed for the study; and maladjustment indexes were measured using the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI; Derogatis & Spencer, 1982). The hypothesis was confirmed for the Impact of Change factor of the SCS and was partially confirmed for the Evaluation factor. These findings suggest a direct relation between negative appraisals of the transition and psychological maladjustment. Interactions with the race variable indicate residual emotional effects, particularly among Black youth. Method- ological, clinical, and political implications of these findings are explored.

The adverse consequences of a variety of stress-related circumstances on mental health throughout the lifespan have been the subject of considerable research since the 1960s, when Holmes and Rahe (1 967) published their seminal study (Compas, 1987; Garmezy, 1983; Rutter, 198 1) . Over the past 30 years, this literature has expanded to embrace a broad diversity of stressors and the psychological sequelae that are specific to childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

Until recently, the research focus within the stress-outcome framework has fallen largely on the area of stressful life events that are defined as acute, discrete events that require varying degrees of adjustment. Life events have been found consistently to be related both to general distress levels and to isolated

'The present research was funded by a grant from the Kaplan Center at the University of Cape

*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michelle Slone, Department of Town, South Africa.

Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel. E-mail: [email protected]

318

Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2002.32,2, pp. 318-341. Copyright 0 2002 by V. H. Winston 8 Son, Inc. All rights reserved.

SOUTH AFRICAN CHANGE AND MALADJUSTMENT 319

psychological symptoms, such as anxiety and depression (Monroe & Peterman, 1988). General age differences in vulnerability are unclear, but findings suggest that younger children are more vulnerable to stress after some life events than are older children (Rutter, 198 I). An increase in stressful life events during adolescence in general, and early adolescence in particular, has been reported (Compas, Davis, & Forsythe, 1985) leading to associated increases in psychological diE- culties (Compas, 1987; Johnson, 1986).

In addition to personal life events, the psychological literature has begun to recognize that broad social changes and events that create demands for individual adaptation are potentially stressful and may have adverse consequences for mental health (Ibrahim & Alnafie, 1991; b u s s & Faas, 1994). Adjustment not only to acute traumatic stressors but also to psychosocial macrostressors can be chal- lenging, especially for preadolescent and adolescent children who already have to negotiate a host of developmental changes and adaptations (Ham & Larson, 1990; Siege1 & Brown, 1988). Cognizance of these powerful influences on children’s development has engendered another, more recent focus of research on the effects of the environmental pathogens of war and sociopolitical stress on children’s psychological adjustment (Garbarino, Kostelny, & Dubrow, 199 l ; Jensen & Shaw, 1993).

The present study falls within this research domain and is directed toward the investigation of the psychological adjustment of children who have grown up under the veil of the profound societal transition occurring in South Africa. Since it can be expected that the transition would be experienced differently for the various ethnic groups within the population, the general aim of the research is to examine possible differences in the effects of perceptions of the societal transition between Black and White youth.3 In order to accomplish this within a quantifiable framework, it was necessary to develop a reliable, albeit ecologically and culturally sensitive instrument to measure responses to sociopolitical change. Utilization of this instrument would enable examination of the relation between appraisals of Black and White South African youth to the sociopolitical transition and a range of gross and subtle psychological indicators, and also the exploration of age, gender, and race differences in this relation.

The societal transition in South Africa can be defined as a move toward a post-apartheid society. This passage began with the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC) and other liberation movements, and the release of Nelson Mandela and other imprisoned political leaders in 1990. This was fol- lowed by the repeal of the apartheid laws that, for many decades, had segregated South African society along racial lines in the domains of education, occupation,

3While the authors reject the use of racially constructed terms as discriminatory and offensive, and acknowledge that the discourse around terms such as race, Black, and White is an area of contro- versy, it was nevertheless deemed necessary to use these terms in the present study insofar as they reflect the past history and present reality of the divisions and social structures created by apartheid.

320 SLONE ET AL.

franchise, and residential rights. The process culminated in South Africa’s first democratic elections in April 1994, resulting in the election of the ANC to power and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s first Black president (Clark, 1993; Meredith, 1994).

The psychological sequelae of political violence, persecution, and oppression for South African children during the apartheid era have been documented exten- sively (Dawes, 1994; Gibson, 1990; Magwaza, Killian, Petersen, & Pillay, 1993). During this era, levels of household and street violence in the Black South Afri- can township communities were reported as being among the highest in the world (Gibson, 1989). Opposition to the apartheid regime was generally met with chronic and extreme forms of state oppression, resulting in the persecution of Black political activists and Black communities, from which children were not exempt. Youth were detained without trial in large numbers and were tortured or physically abused by security forces. Additionally, reports have documented that a significant percentage of all people killed as a result of police action were younger than 15 years (Duncan & Rock, 1994).

Studies of the mental-health consequences of exposure to political violence among Black South African youth have documented both gross and subtle effects that have permeated through to children of all ages. A high incidence of stress disorders and other psychiatric symptomatology has been reported, which includes posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating and sleep disorders, aggression, anxiety, and regressive behavior (Dawes, Tredoux, & Feinstein, 1989; Magwaza et al., 1993). Practitioners have noted alarming increases in suicide rates and substance abuse among children and adolescents (Gama, 1990). These corrosive effects led to expressions of dire concern for the future of South Afri- can children (Chikane, 1986).

In addition, studies are beginning to emerge that indicate the severe violence exposure and long-term sequelae arising from apartheid and from the period of resistance to apartheid. These studies raise alarming statistics of the magnitude of exposure to violence among the population aged 16 to 64 years and subsequent symptoms of mental ill health and FTSD (Hirschowitz & Orkin, 1997). However, an understanding of children’s adjustment to post-apartheid South African society has yet to be formulated. Pre-election studies indicated the prevalence of mixed responses to anticipated future changes among South African youth from different communities, ranging from excitement, optimism, and hope to anxiety, pessimism, and fear (Finchilescu & Dawes, 1993). In present times, many of these anticipated changes have come to pass and researchers have yet to initiate extensive follow-up studies to assess the adjustment of South African youth to the chronic stressors inherent in their changing sociopolitical context. This breach is echoed in other arenas of ongoing sociopolitical transition, such as Northern Ireland and Israel, where research has tended to remain focused on the effects of acute traumatic events.


Given that South African communities have been positioned differentially in society on the basis of race, with a vastly unequal distribution of power and priv- ilege, it may be expected that youth from the various communities and ethnic groups would perceive the sociopolitical changes differently. Although almost all adolescents share some concern about the violence and crime that have plagued post-apartheid South African society, perceptions of the transition have been found to differ across sectors of the population (Finchilescu & Dawes, 1998). In general, White adolescents have been documented to hold more negative views of the ANC government and the new political dispensation than have Black adolescents (Finchilescu & Dawes, 1998). In view of these differences, any attempt to explore the psychological effects of the sociopolitical changes must recognize possible racial differences in the responses of Black and White South African youth.

Despite the magnitude of concern with children’s vulnerability to sociopolitical stressors (e.g., societal transition, war, national and personal security threats, violence, confrontation), emergent research evidence has been inconclusive. Sev- eral studies have indicated the potential for risk for stress reactions, psychopathology, and retarded development among children growing up against a background of political confrontation and ethnic violence (Dawes, 1994; Eth & Pynoos, 1985; Ladd & Cairns, 1996). On the other hand, impressive findings also have emerged for the counterthesis of enhanced maturity (Coles, 1987), advanced abilities for logical and abstract reasoning (Straker, 1993), positive outcomes and even emotional growth (Tedeschi, Park, & Calhoun, 1998), and remarkable resilience among children exposed to chronic sociopolitical tension (Punamaki & Suleiman, 1989). These mediating resiliency factors need to be conceptualized and explored. One avenue for this investigation lies in the life- events model, which attempts to separate precipitant stressors from their outcomes.

Political stressful events are, in a sense, adverse life events. As such, their investigation may be conducted from the perspective of life-events research (Slone, Adiri, & Arian, 1998). While there is consistent evidence of a reliable association between stressful life events and psychological symptoms, this relation frequently has been only a modest one (Thoits, 1983). Thus, in recent years, increasing attention has been directed toward the specific qualities of events that are experienced as stressful.

In order to determine the qualities assigned to events, many life-event scales tend to be weighted as more or less stressful or more or less desirable, according to independently rated severity categorization of events (Johnson & Bradlyn, 1988). However, it has become clear that two important event dimensions that moderate the relation with maladjustment are the subjectively perceived magnitude and undesirability of events (Thoits, 1983). The greater the perceived impact of the event and the stronger the evaluation of its undesirability, the greater the

322 SLONE ET AL.

association with psychological distress (Johnson & Bradlyn, 1988; Thoits, 1983). Thus, the life-events-psychological-functioning link appears to be a mediated, rather than a direct relation. Specifically, it has been proposed that appraisal pro- cesses that reflect the psychological significance of an event are crucial in determining its impact (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), making it essential to assess not only the amount and severity of events, but also event appraisal.

In this construal of mediated stress responses, Lazarus and Folkman ( 1 984) distinguish between the judgment of an encounter as stressful, which they term primary appraisal, and judgments concerning what might and can be done to deal with the stressor, which they term secondary appraisal. Primary appraisals of that which is at stake and secondary appraisals of coping options interact with one another in shaping the degree of stress and the strength and quality or content of the emotional reaction. The conceptualization of primary and secondary appraisal, and the suggestion that stress effects should be modeled as dynamic interactions between the individual and the environment (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), highlight the role of mediating factors in the exposuredistress link. For example, challenge appraisals that entail interpretation of a potentially stressful event as likely to have a successful outcome have been found to lead, in fact, to better outcomes (Carver, 1998). Thus, appraisals and evaluations of events are crucial for determining the degree of adjustment that is required and the resultant depth of psychological distress. This has been demonstrated for children as well as for adults (Kashani, Vaidya, Soltys, Dandoy, & Reid, 1990).

Growing attention to the particular qualities of stressful events has generated a concomitant expansion of the conceptualization of stress beyond the narrow focus on acute life events (Avison & Turner, 1988; McGonagle & Kessler, 1990). Research on low-grade daily stressors such as traffic jams, news events, and waiting in lines has indicated that these chronic microstressors frequently bear a stronger association with psychological distress than do acute dramatic life events (Avison & Turner, 1988; McGonagle & Kessler, 1990). This relation has been documented for adolescents (Compas, Davis, Forsythe, & Wagner, I987), as well as for adults (Caspi, Bolger, & Eckenrode, 1987; McGonagle & Kessler, 1990). This strand of research has contributed to a recent surge of interest in the psychological sequelae associated with chronic, ongoing stressors, rather than with discrete and transitory events. The investigation of sociopolitical stress fits within this rubric.

Several difficulties face the adjustment of the examination of the psychological effects of political upheaval within the lens of life-events research. First, many studies have tended to mimic life-events research in their narrow focus on acute traumatic events, rather than studying the chronic strains inherent in ongoing situations of war and sociopolitical upheaval. For example, the range of stressors studied has included detention (Foster, Davis, & Sandler, 1987), torture (Punamaki, 1988), political imprisonment (Maerker & Schutzwohl, 1997), and


missile attacks (Schwartzwald, Weisenberg, Waysman, Solomon, & Klingman, 1993). Second, studies of the effects of such events have utilized only narrow symptomalogical indicators, such as anxiety or depression (Cicchetti & Toth, 1992) or PTSD (Eth & Pynoos, 1985), rather than measures of general distress levels or a broad range of psychological symptoms. A third difficulty lies in the construction of quantitative designs. In those cases in which researchers have attempted to explore the psychological outcomes associated with ongoing sociopolitical upheaval in countries such as the former Soviet Union (Semyonova, 1993) and Germany (Winkelmann, 1992), they have tended to use a qualitative case-study approach that precludes wide-scale comparison of results.

The motivation underlying the present study is to extend the still fledgling research on the stressors associated with sociopolitical events and to attempt to address some of the limitations of existing stress-related research in several ways. First, in response to recent research indicating that chronic strains and acute events play equally important roles in the development of psychological distress, the present study explores the psychological sequelae of events that are chronic rather than acute in nature. Second, it attempts to develop a quantitative framework for the study of the stressors associated with ongoing sociopolitical transition that would enable large-scale comparative research. Third, it proposes a sensitive event scale that acknowledges judged desirability of events and perceptions of their impact. Finally, rather than focusing on narrow predefined responses, it attempts to measure both general distress levels and a broad range of specific psychological symptoms that may be associated with sociopolitical events.

In line with these considerations, the study proposes one central hypothesis and raises several exploratory questions. The central hypothesis predicts that there will be a direct relation between the negativity of appraisals and the severity of impact of the South African sociopolitical changes and psychological maladjustment. The exploratory questions examine possible race, gender, and age differences in the evaluation and impact of the transition, both in psychological maladjustment indexes and in the relation between appraisals of the transition and maladjustment. In view of the lack of a theoretical rationale for directional predictions for these differences, no directional hypotheses are advanced for these relations.

Method

Sample

The sample was comprised of 540 participants, drawn from the entire Grade 7 class and the entire Grade 10 class of two different schools. One school was a private school, with an almost exclusively White pupil population, while the other school was situated in a Black township of the same city, and its pupil population was exclusively Black. Since the 1990s, with the dissolution of the formal

324 SLONE ET AL.

apartheid system, the majority of schools have become racially integrated, to varying degrees. However, ongoing social class and relatedly residential divisions in South African society mean that the schools in the exclusively Black townships are attended only by Black children, while some private schools remain predominantly White. Subjects were divided according to race, gender, and grade. For White children, there were 70 boys and 68 girls in Grade 7, and 64 boys and 76 girls in Grade 10. For Black children, there were 45 boys and 46 girls in Grade 7, and 7 1 boys and 100 girls in Grade 10.

It is important to note that the historical context of South Africa, defined by apartheid policy, has resulted in the bounded nature of race and socioeconomic status. Because of a legacy of systematic racial discrimination and oppression, White communities retain their upper and middle socioeconomic status (SES), while the low SES of most Black communities is preserved. The widely differing SES characteristics of the two samples in the present study reflect this societal distortion that is unavoidable when sampling across race groups in South Africa.

The mean age of the sample was 15.60 years (SD = 2.88), but this varied according to grade and race. In Grade 7, the mean age was 12.73 for White students and 14.36 for Black students; and in Grade 10, the mean age was 14.81 for White students and 18.85 for Black students. The Black sample in each grade was older than the White sample. The discriminatory educational practices of past apartheid structures have produced noncomparable race- and area-linked age differences for educational level, whereby the age of Black pupils is often higher than that of White pupils in the same grade level. This accounts for the age- related sampling differences encountered in the present study. Many missing val- ues were present on the questionnaires and, consequently, the sample size varies across the different statistical tests reported in the next section.

Instruments

Participants completed a battery of questionnaires in their first language: White children in English, and Black children in Xhosa. Two independent, fully bilingual translators back-translated the Xhosa version of the questionnaires in order to ensure compatibility with the English version.

The research battery was comprised of the following three questionnaires: Sociopolitical Change Scale (SCS). Responses to the sociopolitical transition

in South Africa were measured by a quantifiable rating scale questionnaire that was designed by the researchers. A rating scale was favored over other quantitative measures as research indicates that respondents feel able to express them- selves more precisely with rating-scale items than with alternate-choice items, such as Yes or No (Rust & Golombok, 1989).

After a pre-test in which an initial pool of 30 items was administered to 20 same-aged Black and White children, 19 items were selected, and these


comprised the final questionnaire. Items were chosen to tap respondents’ perceptions of the impact of change (the extent of impact of the sociopolitical change on their daily living) and their evaluation of change as desirable or undesirable. This choice was driven by the demonstrated importance of these two factors in life- events research. The items were chosen to explore the broad range of experience of South African adolescents, covering their daily lives at home, at school, and socially, as well as their future educational and employment opportunities. These items were felt to adequately cover the required range. Impact of change was measured by 12 items, and evaluation of change was measured by 7 items (Appendix).

All items were measured along a 5-point rating scale. For those items dealing with the impact of change, the scale ranged from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much) or from 1 (never) to 5 (all the time). Scores were derived by summing ratings for all items on the impact scale. For those items measuring the evaluation of change, the 5-point rating scale ranged from I (very negative) to 5 (very positive). The scale was scored by summing ratings on all items, such that the higher the rating, the less negative the evaluation of the change. Written instructions on the questionnaire directed respondents to mark the box that best described their response to each item.

In sum, the 19-item scale assessed (a) the perceived impact that recent sociopolitical changes have had on family, academic, and social life; on future educational and employment opportunities; and on the future of South Africa in general; and (b) evaluations of these changes as desirable or undesirable. The 12 impact-of-change items yielded a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .76, and the 7 evaluation-of-change items yielded a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .78, both indicating adequate internal consistency. The SCS thus consists of two reliable factors: Impact of Change, and Evaluation of Change.

Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). Maladjustment was measured by the BSI (Derogatis & Spencer, 1982), which is the abbreviated version of the Symptom Checklist 90 Revised (SCL-90-R). The BSI is a 53-item psychological self-report symptom scale that contains 10 subclinical symptom dimensions: somatization, depression, hostility, phobic anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, paranoid ideation, anxiety, social alienation, interpersonal sensitivity, and an additional subscale of miscellaneous symptoms. Each item is rated on a 5-point scale of distress ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (very much). Where a single summary measure is required, Derogatis and Spencer (1 982) recommend the utilization of the Global Severity Index (GSI) as a general psychological distress index. The GSI is calculated as the average of the sum of distress ratings that the respondent has assigned to each symptom. In the present study, the general distress or maladjustment measure was based on the GSI, and symptom load was calculated along each of the subscales, excluding the miscellaneous symptom scale. This provided a profile of global distress and specific symptomatology for each subject.

326 SLONE ET AL.

Convergent validity and construct validity for the BSI (Derogatis & Spencer, 1982) have been established, and studies with various populations have shown that the scale has good test-retest reliability (ranging from .68 to .91) and internal consistency reliability (ranging from .71 to .85; Derogatis & Melisaratos, 1983). The English version of the BSI has been normed on adolescent, nonclinical adults, and psychiatric patient populations. It has been shown to be a relatively reliable and valid cross-cultural measure of subclinical maladjustment and psychological distress for Polish, Filipino, and Irish immigrants in the United States (Aroian, Patsdaughter, Levin, & Gianan, 1995) and for Israeli adolescents (Canetti, Shalev, & Kaplan de-Nour, 1994).

The inventory is simply worded and has been found to be suitable for individuals who have reached a reading knowledge equivalent to that of an American sixth-grade education. Adolescents as young as 13 years have been evaluated via the BSI without apparent distortions (Derogatis & Melisaratos, 1983). In the present study, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the GSI and the nine symptom dimensions of the BSI were GSI = .95, somatization = .77, obsessive- compulsive = .68, interpersonal sensitivity = .71, depression = .77, anxiety = .72, hostility = .69, phobic anxiety = .69, paranoid ideation = .65, and social alienation = .7 1 . These coefficients indicate adequate current internal consistency.

Stressful Life Events Scale (SLES). In order to control for the contribution of personal stressful life events to the maladjustment indexes, respondents also completed the 22-item SLES developed by Brown (1985). This scale consists primarily of stressful events (e.g., death of a parent, parental divorce), but also includes several transitory, less stressful events (e.g., doing badly on a test). Respondents check all events that they have experienced in the past 5 years. Brown reported a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .67 and a 6-week test-retest reliability of .61. For the present study, the SLES yielded a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .70, indicating adequate internal consistency.

Procedure

Permission to administer the study was obtained from the school principals and the participants. Questionnaires were randomly counterbalanced, and the battery was administered to respondents in their instructional language in their class- rooms by two experimenters. All participants at each particular school completed the questionnaire package concurrently, on a date decided by the respective principals. The anonymity of the participants and the schools was assured.

Results

The central hypothesis of the study states that the degree of negativity of the evaluations of the sociopolitical transition and the severity of the assigned impact


will be directly related to maladjustment indexes. In addition, we also sought to determine whether any of the possible relations will interact with the race, gender, and grade of the participants. One of the difficulties inherent in the data was that only 47% of the subjects completed the entire BSI (Derogatis & Spencer, 1982). This meant that the sample size was reduced for many of the statistical computations. Nevertheless, given the relatively large sample size, the completed data were sufficient for analyses.

in the first stage of the analysis, 3 three-way ANOVAs were conducted to establish whether there were race, gender, and grade differences on impact of change, evaluation of change, and BSI (Derogatis & Spencer, 1982) scores. For the impact of change, only the main effect for race was significant, F( 1, 532) =

135.40, p < .OOO 1. Black adolescents (M = 36.70, SD = 1.04) reported a higher impact of change than did White adolescents (M= 29.92, SD = 1.45). No interactions were significant. For the evaluation of change, only the main effects for race, F( 1, 530) = 26.50, p < .OOO I ; and age, F( I , 530) = 5.54, p < .05, were significant. Black youth (M = 22.89, SD = 2.35) reported a more positive evaluation of change than did White youth (M= 20.39, SD = 2.84); and Grade 7 participants (M = 21.99, SD = 2.66) reported a slightly more positive evaluation of change than did the Grade 10 participants (A4 = 2 1.32, SD = 1.99). No interactions were significant.

For the GSI of the BSI (Derogatis & Spencer, 1982), the main effect for race, F(1, 532) = 3 7 . 5 0 , ~ < .0001; and the main effect for gender, F(1, 532) = 3.98, p < .05, were significant, with Black adolescents (M= 127.08, SD = 0.74) scoring higher than White adolescents (M = 98.35, SD = 2.61), and females (M =

112.16, SD = 1.50) scoring higher than males (M= 99.19, SD = 2.78). The three- way interaction between race, gender, and grade was also significant, F( 1,532) = 4.69, p < .05. Table 1 reports the cell means for this interaction. The effect is attributable to a relatively large disparity between the means for the Black male and female participants. For the participants in Grade 7, males scored higher than did females; but for the participants in Grade 10, the females scored higher than did the males.

The effect of personal stressful life events was too small to be included in the analysis. The correlations between the nine specific symptom dimensions and the GSI of the BSI (Derogatis & Spencer, 1982), and the impact of change and evaluation of change are reported in Table 2. The GSI and all the symptom dimensions, except hostility, were correlated with the impact-of-change index, but not with the evaluation-of-change index.

The correlation coefficients reported in Table 2 only provide information regarding linear associations between symptomatology and the impact of change and evaluation of change. In addition, the correlations may have been influenced by extraneous variables of race, gender, and grade. ANOVAs were used to examine these two issues. In order to investigate possible nonlinear relations, the

328 SLONE ET AL.

Table 1

Means for Global Severity Index by Race, Gendec and Grade

Grade 7 Grade 10

Male Female Male Female

M SD M SD M SD M SD

White 90.75 2.16 101.25 2.02 96.23 2.06 104.01 1.49 Black 131.38 0.82 122.00 1.33 112.14 1.52 140.14 0.63

Table 2

Correlations Between Global Severity Index (GSI) and Symptom Dimensions of Brief Symptom Inventory and the Impact of Change and Evaluation of Change

Evaluation of change Impact of change

Anxiety Depression Hostility Interpersonal sensitivity Obsessive*ompulsive Paranoid ideation Phobic anxiety Social alienation Somatization GSI

.03

.05 -.os .09 .oo .02 .lo* .06 .o 1 .o 1

.23 * *

.23 * *

.08

.22**

.21**

.23**

.29**

.23**

.22**

.20**

* p < .05. **p .0001.

variables of impact of change and evaluation of change were first divided into quartiles reflecting low, moderate, high, and very high levels. Table 3 provides a summary of the evaluation of change and impact of change scores for participants in each quartile.

These four quartiles of impact of change and evaluation of change were then used as independent variables, together with race, gender, and grade in two separate four-way ANOVAs, with the GSI as the dependent variable in each case. The first ANOVA sought to determine whether the participants in the different quartiles of impact of change scored differently on the GSI. In addition, the variables of race, gender, and grade were used as further independent variables to ascertain


Table 3

Summary Statistics for the Quartiles of Evaluation of Change and Impact of Change

Evaluation of change Impact of change

Quartile M SD n M SD n

41 14.61 2.90 164 24.82 2.94 160 42 20.17 0.08 141 31.07 1.41 165 43 23.38 1.13 154 35.92 1.45 154 44 29.87 2.84 154 44.07 4.47 136

whether they interacted with impact of change. Neither the main effect for impact of change nor any of the higher order interactions was significant. The only significant effect was the main effect for race, which has been considered earlier. Although impact of change was positively correlated with the symptomatology indexes, the loss of degrees of freedom associated with dividing the scores into quartiles reduced the sensitivity of the ANOVAs to levels that could not detect the linear relations. It was concluded, therefore, that impact of change has a weak linear relation with symptomatology and that this relation is independent of the race, gender, and grade of the participants.

The second ANOVA sought to determine whether the participants in the different quartiles of evaluation of change scored differently on the GSI and whether evaluation of change interacted with the variables of race, gender, and grade. The race variable was once again the only significant main effect. No two- way interactions were significant, but the three-way interaction between race, gender, and grade was significant, as already discussed (Table 1).

Although evaluation of change was not related to the GSI, and impact of change was weakly related to the GSI, there remained the possibility that these variables were related to only certain subscales of the BSI. A series of 18 four- way ANOVAs was computed to test first whether each of the nine subscales of the BSI was related to impact of change or interactions between impact of change and race, gender, and grade. Second, the ANOVA tested whether each of the nine subscales of the BSI was related to evaluation of change or interactions between evaluation of change and race, gender, and grade. Only one effect involving impact of change was significant. The interaction between impact of change and gender was significant for the phobic anxiety subscale of the BSI, F(3, 454) = 4.29, p < .01. Table 4 shows that the interaction is largely a result of relatively high means for phobic anxiety among the female participants in the fourth quartile of the impact-of-change range.

330 SLONE ET AL.

Table 4

Impact of Change by Gender Cell Means for Phobic Anxiety

Quartile 1 Quartile 2 Quartile 3 Quartile 4 M SD M SD M SD M SD

Male 8.29 2.03 8.45 2.01 9.82 1.65 10.44 1.22

Female 9.77 1.88 9.56 1.78 9.62 1.89 13.49 0.99 (n = 65) (n = 62) (n = 56) (n = 45)

(n = 75) (n = 80) (n = 5 5 ) (n = 45)

The evaluation of change variable was related to three different dimensions of the BSI. The main effect for evaluation of change was significant for the somatization subscale, F(3,438) = 4.25, p < . O l . The quartile means for somatization show a curvilinear relationship, with the second ( M = 13.53, SD = 0.98) and third (M= 13.60, SD = 0.87) quartiles showing higher means than the first (M= 13.31, SD = 1.24) and fourth ( M = 13.13, SD = 1.53) quartiles. The main effect for evaluation of change was also significant for the depression subscale of the BSI, F(3, 44 1) = 4.13, p < .O 1. The comparison of means also shows a curvilinear trend, but in this instance the first quartile mean (M = 12.35, SD = 1.03) was significantly lower than the means for the second (M = 12.75, SD = 0.98), third (M = 12.9 I , SD = 0.92), and fourth (M = 12.74, SD = 1.01) quartiles. There were two significant effects involving evaluation of change and hostility: the main effect for evaluation of change, F(3, 439) = 2.80, p < .05; and the interaction between evaluation of change and race, F(3, 439) = 2.77, p < .05. Comparisons of the means for the main effect show that individuals in the fourth quartile (M= 9.81, SD = 2.98) of the evaluation of change variable scored lower than did individuals in Quartiles 1 (M = 10.55, SD = 2.53), 2 (M = 10.62, SD = 2.48), and 3 (M =

10.47, SD = 2.56). Table 5 shows that the significant interaction between evaluation of change and race is largely attributable to the strong curvilinear effect for the Black sample

Power analyses were calculated for all effects. For all significant effects, the power ranged between .55 and .98.

Discussion

In order to enable quantitative investigation of the effects of appraisals of the massive societal transition in South Africa, a useful instrument to measure responses to sociopolitical change was constructed. Using this instrument, the major aim of the study was to explore the relation between perceptions of sociopolitical change and global distress levels, as well as specific symptom dimensions among youth from different sectors of the population.


Table 5

Evaluation of Change by Race Cell Means for Hostility

Quartile 1 Quartile 2 Quartile 3 Quartile 4

M SD M SD M SD M SD

Male 10.53 2.05 9.99 2.86 10.38 2.05 9.82 2.92

Female 10.57 2.70 12.03 1.12 10.58 2.70 9.81 2.95 ( n = 8 1 ) (n = 87) (n = 69) (n = 33)

(n = 58) (n = 39) (n = 60) (n = 89)

The SCS, which was constructed for the study, was found to cohere reliably into two factors: impact of change, and evaluation of change. Analysis of the scale yielded adequate internal consistency coefficients for both factors. Further- more, race, gender, and age differences in response to the scale were in the expected direction, lending support to the validity of the instrument.

The SCS reflected both Black and White adolescents’ expressions of concern for their future. Expansion of the lens beyond the narrow focal point of acutely stressful events enabled discernment of these adolescents’ retroactive and proac- tive appraisals of the profound sociopolitical transition within which they grew up. They are the generation that bears the scars of apartheid, that witnessed its dissipation, and that carries the onus of developing a new societal reality. Their views and evaluations of this period could prove to be a noteworthy historical document and should be extended to other sectors of the population. Although the scale is culturally sensitive and restricted in its generalizability, with transla- tion where necessary, it may be extended feasibly to other adult or adolescent groupings in South Africa. This would allow for the ongoing development of reliable, nationally cross-cultural and temporally comparative studies, highlight- ing both the common and the particular responses of different ethnic, gender, and age groups to sociopolitical change.

Methodology based on the construction of reliable quantitative measures for the assessment of chronic political pressures opens a promising avenue of investigation that releases research from the restriction of dependence on acute traumatic stressors and their outcomes. This conception could enable access to data on the environmental pressures impinging on children’s development, which would otherwise be untenable.

Responses to the SCS yielded three interesting findings. First, across gender and grade levels, Black adolescents reported greater impact of sociopolitical changes on their daily lives and future opportunities than did White adolescents. This is not surprising, given the particular nature of the South African sociopolitical transition. For Black communities, the new dispensation already has brought

332 SLONE ET AL.

tangible changes in educational, residential, franchise, and occupational rights, although they still remain economically disadvantaged. The lifting of legally entrenched oppression and discrimination also has brought attendant hopes for enhanced future opportunities. The impact of the sociopolitical transition on the daily and future lives of Black adolescents has been profound. By contrast, many White adolescents may have been relatively insulated from the ongoing broad sociopolitical changes. The particular societal positioning of the present sample (i.e., White youth from an upper-middle-class SES background) may render them relatively buffered from sociopolitical changes on a daily basis.

In terms of evaluations of sociopolitical change, Black adolescents consistently assigned more positive evaluations than did White youth across grade levels and gender. This finding aligns with the expectation that White adolescents would hold more negative attitudes regarding change than would Black adolescents. In all probability, the transition would not have benefited White adolescents personally, who already enjoy relative societal insulation within their protected residential, social, and family environments. However, White adolescents may feel some anxiety about the sociopolitical transition, which nevertheless entails some present or future loss and disadvantage for them. Counterposed to this, Black adolescents come from a history of severe oppression and discrimination and can only benefit from the new sociopolitical order, however limited it is at the outset. They are thus likely to rate it more positively.

In South Africa, race is inextricably interwoven with SES, such that Black communities have traditionally been economically disadvantaged. The effects found in the study may be a result of SES differences, rather than racial or cultural differences that cannot be separated in the South African context. Despite the bounded nature of these two variables, the importance of the differences in the evaluations and impact of the societal change for Black and White adolescents remains significant.

These findings of greater assigned impact of change and more positive evaluations of change by Black as opposed to White adolescents align with rationale and, therefore, lend support to the criterion group validity of the SCS. In addition, there seems to be no reason to expect that girls would evaluate the changes differently than would boys. The finding of a lack of significant gender differences adds further confirmation to the validity of the scale.

Findings indicate that Grade 7 subjects evaluated changes slightly less nega- tively than did Grade 10 subjects, across both gender and race groups. It is difi- cult to interpret this finding with regard to developmental trends, however, given that historical apartheid education structures have distorted age-appropriate educational advancement for many Black children. Thus, in our sample, many Grade 7 Black adolescents were the same age as were several of the Grade 10 White youth. Therefore, we can only raise interpretations regarding school grade-level differences, rather than age differences. Although any explanation of this finding


can only be speculative in nature, it is conceivable that evaluations of sociopolitical change and of new societal realities gain weight and reflect a more serious perspective as adolescents approach higher grade levels and begin to face tertiary education, career, and residential choices.

Findings for global distress levels reveal that, in general, Black adolescents reported higher levels of distress than did White adolescents. This aligns with existing literature that documents the high prevalence of psychopathology among Black children in township communities (Hirschowitz & Orkin, 1997). Many of these children have been exposed to political violence as victims or witnesses, have experienced the loss of family members as a result of political violence, and have grown up in a context of community instability and unrest (Dawes, 1994; Magwaza et al., 1993).

Significant gender differences indicate that, for the total sample, girls reported higher levels of distress than did boys. However, a closer examination of this relation yields differential developmental trends for each race group. For all Grade 10 youth, females reported higher levels of general distress than did males, despite the higher mean age for Black Grade 10 adolescents. For the Grade 7 adolescents, however, White females were more distressed than were White males, while Black males were more distressed than were Black females. Previ- ous international findings suggest that there is a general trend for boys to be more vulnerable to distress than girls in prepubertal phases of development (Rutter, 1981), but that this trend reverses in adolescence when vulnerability to symptomatology is higher for adolescent girls than for boys (Hops, Sherman & Biglan, 1989). Our findings suggest that White and Black Grade 10 adolescents, who reflect middle and late adolescence respectively, mimic international trends, with girls reporting more distress than boys. However, Grade 7 participants showed a reversal of this trend. For pre-adolescent White youth (M age = 12.73 years), girls reported more distress than did boys, while for the mid-adolescent Black youth (M age = 14.81 years), boys reported more distress than did girls. The general prevalence of global distress levels among South African youth is beyond the scope of the present study, which is concerned specifically with the relation between responses to sociopolitical change and general levels of distress. None- theless, in view of the significant levels of reported distress among South African youth, the previous finding warrants further investigation and explanation in order to understand differences between international and local age-related gender trends.

The central hypothesis of a direct relation between negativity of appraisals of sociopolitical change and psychological maladjustment was confirmed for the impact of change scale and partially confirmed for the evaluation of change scale. Significant correlations emerged between the perceived impact of the change and both general distress levels and all of the symptom dimensions except hostility, indicating that the greater the attributed impact, the higher the

334 SLONE ET AL.

level of maladjustment indexes. Adolescents of both genders, races, and scholas- tic levels were all similarly affected. However, girls of both races and grades who attributed very high impact to the transition manifested steep increases in phobic anxiety. This suggests the likelihood of consistent gender differences in phobic expressions of anxiety across race groups and grade levels. This concurs with previous epidemiological research that has consistently found phobic symptoms to be more common among females than among males (Kaplan, Sadock, & Grebb, 1994). Within the context of the present study, the findings suggest that girls’ anxiety reaches phobic proportions as the impact they assign to sociopolitical change increases. The perturbing ramifications for girls’ adjustment to the transition warrant further investigation of the specific nature and focus of such phobic anxiety, requisite to the potential provision of appropriate intervention.

Evaluations of change were not related to the overall global distress index, but were related to three subscales of the BSI: somatization, depression, and hostility. Somatization and depression were related to evaluation of change in a curvilinear manner, such that as evaluations became less negative, there was an initial rise in symptoms. However, when evaluations are most positive, symptomatology decreases significantly: for somatization to below the initial first quartile level, and for depression to the second quartile level. This finding was consistent across race, gender, and grade, supporting its universal nature.

At first glance, the rise in maladjustment indexes with decreasing negative evaluations of the transition seems puzzling. However, it has been recognized that broad macrolevel social changes, like personal life changes, create demands for individual adjustment (Ibrahim & Alnafie, 1991; Krauss & Faas, 1994). It is possible to speculate that the initial surrender of negative evaluations of the transition entails substantial readjustment to a new social reality. However, given the complexity of these relations, any attempt at their interpretation would entail considerable speculation. In addition, despite significant increase and decrease effects, actual value differences are small, thereby precluding well-founded con- clusions.

The two symptom clusters, depression and somatization, are particularly related to adolescence, and, therefore, their association with negative evaluations of the transition is not surprising. Depression is far more common among adolescents than among younger children (Angold, 1988) and, possibly, even adults (Schoenbach, Garrison, & Kaplan, 1984). It is also more strongly associated with chronic stress than with acute stressors (McGonagle & Kessler, 1990). Addition- ally, the onset of somatization disorders occurs most often during adolescence (Kaplan et al., 1994), suggesting a higher profile of somatic symptoms among adolescents than among younger children. However, the relation between South African adolescents’ evaluations of change with the depression and somatization dimensions departs from findings of general prevalence studies of the BSI


subscales that show that anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders are most common among adolescents of other nationalities (Canetti et al., 1994).

The pattern of consistent decreases in hostility levels as evaluations of the transition became less negative was somewhat different than that for depression and somatization. The interaction with race indicates that this pattern for hostility is largely attributable to the strong effect among Black youth. This finding is intuitively logical and suggests that previously high levels of hostility among this group may decrease rapidly as sociopolitical changes are felt to bring greater rights and privileges to the sector of the population against whom discrimination was previously targeted.

For all three symptom dimensions, and irrespective of race, gender, and grade, symptomatology is lowest when evaluations of the sociopolitical transition are most positive. Clearly, these results should be replicated with larger sectors of the population. However, the verity of this finding throws a promising light over adolescents’ ability to cast off the shackles of apartheid and augurs well for the young people of South Africa.

The present study holds some interesting methodological, clinical, and political implications. In terms of methodology, one asset of the current study is the feasibility of extending its core methodology to other sectors of the population. The adaptation of psychological models to the investigation of the effects of chronic political pressures may prove efficacious in paring away those dimensions of the political environment perceived as adverse, and in evaluating their impact. The present design represents a successfid foray into the investigation of those dimensions of a chronically stressful political context that affect the psychological adjustment of South African youth.

Clinically, the results highlight the enmeshed transaction between the individual and the sociopolitical environment. General confirmation of the central hypothesis of the study of a direct relation between negative appraisals of the sociopolitical change and psychological maladjustment reinforces that the sociopolitical environment exists not as an objective constant, but rather as a subjectively experienced interactive context within which emotional development occurs. Subjective appraisals of the environment affect the psychological adjustment of adolescents, and findings show the ongoing residual psychological maladjustment of Black youth several years into the transition. These results align with Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) conceptualization of primary appraisals of a potentially stressful environment in determining response outcomes. Despite the strides achieved in the post-apartheid era, it is the subjective evaluations of the transition that are closely associated with emotional response patterns.

Assessments of these responses yield a channel toward attempts at sensitive and informed local therapeutic interventions that can be implemented by schools and mental-health practitioners. Additionally, the findings clarify that crisis intervention after acute events is insufficient and that resources should be directed

336 SLONE ET AL.

toward ongoing management on a more prolonged level. Special attention should focus on both individual appraisals of the societal transition and on collective evaluations of different sectors of the multicultural, multistratified South African population.

The findings of the present study indicate that, in the South African context of rapid social change, depressive and somatic symptoms among youth should be monitored and targeted in the development of intervention programs. However, the findings regarding specific subscales are only a cursory valuation of the sequelae of massive societal transition. Further research should be directed toward a more fine-grained analysis that targets different sectors of the population, using designs that meticulously explore different layers of the multifaceted sociopolitical environment.

In the political domain, the findings of the present study indicate that South African politicians and policymakers should take greater cognizance of the multi- plex impact of their decisions on the mental health of the country’s youth. The effects of political decisions may reverberate beyond their immediate parameters, and their sequelae may outlive the short-term ramifications of decisions and poli- cies. The new South African government has already demonstrated its willing- ness to give the country’s youth a voice by its establishment of a Youth Commission, with an agenda to advocate and protect the rights and needs of children. It appears feasible that such a forum could also incorporate among its inter- ests that of monitoring and protecting the mental health of children with respect to the impact of ongoing sociopolitical change.

Notwithstanding its limited scope, the present study illuminates aspects of the developmental and emotional risks to children of growing up under conditions of massive sociopolitical change. The gravity of this research that should alert policymakers to the toll paid by children has both ethical and scientific importance. Nonetheless, despite its complex ramifications, South Africa’s far-reaching societal transition extends a ray of encouragement for South African youth.

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Appendix

Items for the Two Factors of the Sociopolitical Change Scale

Factor I : Impact of Change

1. How much political change do you think has taken place in South Africa

2. How often do you talk about these changes with members of your

3, How often do you talk about these changes at school with your friends? 4, How often do you talk about these changes with your friends in social

5, How often do your teachers discuss these changes with you in class? 6. How often do you think about these changes when you are on your own? 7. How much have these changes affected your school life? 8. How much have these changes affected your daily life at home? 9. How much have these changes affected your social life?

since April 1994?

family?

situations?

10. How much do you think these changes will affect your future

1 1. How much do you think these changes will affect your hture job

12. How much do you think these changes will affect the future of South

educational opportunities after school?

opportunities?

Africa?

Factor 2: Evaluation of Change

1. How do you feel about these political changes? 2. How do you feel about the way they have affected your school life? 3. How do you feel about the way they have affected your home life? 4. How do you feel about the way they have affected your social life? 5. How do you feel about the way they will affect your future educational

6. How do you feel about the way they will affect your future job

7. How do you feel about the way they will affect the future of South

opportunities after school?

opportunities?

Africa?

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