Violence prevention among African American adolescent males.

OBJECTIVE: To test psychosocial mediators of the effects of an intervention in reducing the rate of growth of violence among adolescents. METHOD: Five hundred and seventy-one African American adolescent males participated in this randomized trial. Multilevel modeling techniques were used to ascertain both intervention and mediated effects. RESULTS: Intervention significantly reduced rate of growth of violence and 5 social and psychological factors in the treatment group relative to the control group. Four of these social and psychological factors were found to be complete mediators between the intervention and its preventive effects. CONCLUSION: Changing psychological mediating variables is central to reducing youth violence.