TRIOS traits enable African American coping with powerlessness and denigration.

Evidence

I propose a quintet of characteristics that are considered originating cultural patterns of behavior (Jones, 2003): Time, Rhythm, Improvisation, Orality, and Spirituality (TRIOS). These culturally derived qualities combine to create adaptation potential in circumstances characterized by lack of control and denigrated human worth. By staying focused in the present, employing creative and flexible problem-solving strategies in unpredictable and threatening situations, utilizing oral communication to transmit cultural values and political self-protective courses of action, and sustaining the human spirit through connection to a higher being and the natural rhythms of nature and the soul, are the qualities that I argue are utilized in the adaptation and coping of African Americans. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1088

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the TRIOS framework (Time, Rhythm, Improvisation, Orality, Spirituality) as a defined concept.
• STORYSTEM: A narrative spark: a character whose improvisational present-focused coping style comes from an inherited cultural pattern, not just trauma response.