Holding strong Africentric world views (e.g., values, beliefs, behaviors, and consciousness deriving from an African cultural heritage) has also been associated with reduced risk of alcohol use. Nasim and colleages (2007) summarized Africentric values as reflecting the primacy of family, community, interdependent relationships and shared responsibilities. Values characteristic of an Africentric world view include: spirituality, sensitivity to emotional cues (including synthesis of the verbal and nonverbal), expressive communication (e.g., oral communication), harmony (e.g., emphasis on integrating parts of one’s life into a whole), time as a social phenomenon (e.g., fluidity of time), rhythmic movement, stylistic expression (e.g., all manners of expressing oneself), interpersonal orientation and communalism (e.g., emphasis of the group over the individual), multimodal perception and learning (e.g., perception and learning involve using visual, auditory, tactile perceptions and motor skills simultaneously, a preference for stimulus variety), and negativity to positivity (e.g., seeing the good in all situations: Randolph & Banks, 1993).
