IMPORTANT EXPERIMENTS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY:
BELONGING AS A POWERFUL LEVER
BELONGING AS A POWERFUL LEVER
The Power of Self-Affirmation through Normalization: Greg Walton and Geoff Cohen’s Social-Belonging Intervention (2007, 2011).
One-hundred first year college students were evenly divided into four cohorts in the spring semester of their freshman year at a selective university -- a Black student treatment cohort; and a Black student control cohort; a White student treatment cohort; and a White student control cohort.
The two control cohorts were given important information about campus life. The two treatment cohorts read the results of a survey on the topic, “many students feel they do not belong in college but that such worries dissipate” over time. The students in the treatment cohorts then wrote an essay summarizing the essence of the survey results. And finally, these same treatment cohort students gave a video speech that was promoted for the purpose of being shown to next year’s freshmen.
The main results: the Black student treatment cohort earned higher GPA’s (.24 grade points) in the three intervening years. The racial “achievement gap” narrowed by 52%. All other cohorts were unchanged!
Why this "intervention" worked: It normalized the anxieties nearly all students have in the first year of college, what psychologists call “belonging uncertainty.” It shifted the insecurities of college freshmen about their ability to succeed into the environment itself. That is, most first year students in college bring with them major self doubts. If they are aware that this is part of the terrain, if they are aware that most of their classmates are plagued with self doubts, then the environment is to blame.
The length: one session of one hour.
An important aside: Few students remembered the initial intervention three years later when asked.
Thought Experiment:
CLUE: social construal is powerful.
The Power of Self-Affirmation through Normalization: Greg Walton and Geoff Cohen’s Social-Belonging Intervention (2007, 2011).
One-hundred first year college students were evenly divided into four cohorts in the spring semester of their freshman year at a selective university -- a Black student treatment cohort; and a Black student control cohort; a White student treatment cohort; and a White student control cohort.
The two control cohorts were given important information about campus life. The two treatment cohorts read the results of a survey on the topic, “many students feel they do not belong in college but that such worries dissipate” over time. The students in the treatment cohorts then wrote an essay summarizing the essence of the survey results. And finally, these same treatment cohort students gave a video speech that was promoted for the purpose of being shown to next year’s freshmen.
The main results: the Black student treatment cohort earned higher GPA’s (.24 grade points) in the three intervening years. The racial “achievement gap” narrowed by 52%. All other cohorts were unchanged!
Why this "intervention" worked: It normalized the anxieties nearly all students have in the first year of college, what psychologists call “belonging uncertainty.” It shifted the insecurities of college freshmen about their ability to succeed into the environment itself. That is, most first year students in college bring with them major self doubts. If they are aware that this is part of the terrain, if they are aware that most of their classmates are plagued with self doubts, then the environment is to blame.
The length: one session of one hour.
An important aside: Few students remembered the initial intervention three years later when asked.
Thought Experiment:
- Other ways to leverage...
- What if every first year college student, especially students of color, were to go through this program.
CLUE: social construal is powerful.