We took a risk and resilience approach to investigating how witnessing physical violence influences adolescent violent behaviors overtime. We proposed efficacy to avoid violence as a major path of influence in this negative trajectory of adolescent development. We also focus on the protective roles of parenting behaviors for African American boys living in disadvantaged contexts. Most of our sample of 310 African American adolescent males (M age = 13.50, SD = .620) had experienced significant amounts of violence, but they also reported continued efficacy to avoid violence. We tested a first stage dual moderated mediation model and found that higher levels of witnessing violence lead to more violent behavior and less efficacy to avoid violence, and that efficacy was the mediator in that link. Youth who witness more violence may feel that engagement in violence is inescapable and thus may themselves end up engaging in it. These problematic long-term trajectories were moderated by parent’s communication about violence and monitoring revealing possible protections for youth, and an enhancement of youths’ internal strengths. Our findings propose pathways that can inform interventions that may protect African American adolescent boys against the vicious cycle of exposure to, and acts of, violence.

我们采取了一种风险和弹性方法来调查目睹身体暴力如何影响青少年的暴力行为。我们提议将避免暴力的功效作为影响青少年发展的负面轨迹的主要途径。我们还关注养育行为对生活在弱势环境中的非裔美国男孩的保护作用。我们的 310 名非裔美国青少年男性样本（M 年龄 = 13.50，SD = .620）中的大多数都经历过大量暴力，但他们也报告说在避免暴力方面持续有效。我们测试了第一阶段的双调节调解模型，发现更高水平的目击暴力会导致更多的暴力行为和更低的避免暴力的效力，而效力是该链接中的调解者。目睹更多暴力的青年人可能会觉得卷入暴力是不可避免的，因此他们自己最终可能会卷入其中。这些有问题的长期轨迹被父母关于暴力的沟通和监控揭示了对青年的可能保护以及青年内在力量的增强所缓和。我们的研究结果提出了可以为干预措施提供信息的途径，这些干预措施可以保护非裔美国青春期男孩免受接触暴力和暴力行为的恶性循环。