A brief social-belonging intervention in college improves adult outcomes for black Americans

Brady, Shannon T.; Cohen, Geoffrey L.; Jarvis, Shoshana N; Walton, Gregory M.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aay3689

Cited by 109 publications

(92 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…This finding may help scientists and health experts predict rates of compliance with cooperative health guidelines. While our study is correlational in nature, it paves the way for designed interventions to facilitate peoples’ feelings of connection, identification, and altruism toward strangers [ 3 , 36 – 38 ]. An alteration in the perception of one’s connection to the “family of humanity” at large could result in improvements to public health and altruism during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as in future pan-human crises.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying with all humanity predicts cooperative health behaviors and helpful responding during COVID-19

et al. 2021

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In the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, public health experts have produced guidelines to limit the spread of the coronavirus, but individuals do not always comply with experts’ recommendations. Here, we tested whether a specific psychological belief—identification with all humanity—predicts cooperation with public health guidelines as well as helpful behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. We hypothesized that peoples’ endorsement of this belief—their relative perception of a connection and moral commitment to other humans—would predict their tendencies to adopt World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines and to help others. To assess this, we conducted a global online study (N = 2537 participants) of four WHO-recommended health behaviors and four pandemic-related moral dilemmas that we constructed to be relevant to helping others at a potential cost to oneself. We used generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) that included 10 predictor variables (demographic, contextual, and psychological) for each of five outcome measures (a WHO cooperative health behavior score, plus responses to each of our four moral, helping dilemmas). Identification with all humanity was the most consistent and consequential predictor of individuals’ cooperative health behavior and helpful responding. Analyses showed that the identification with all humanity significantly predicted each of the five outcomes while controlling for the other variables (Prange < 10−22 to < 0.009). The mean effect size of the identification with all humanity predictor on these outcomes was more than twice as large as the effect sizes of other predictors. Identification with all humanity is a psychological construct that, through targeted interventions, may help scientists and policymakers to better understand and promote cooperative health behavior and help-oriented concern for others during the current pandemic as well as in future humanitarian crises.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying with all humanity predicts cooperative health behaviors and helpful responding during COVID-19

et al. 2021

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“…Once at college, their greater sense of belonging and improved academic performance can lead to further benefits such as stronger relationships with mentors that can last beyond the college years. And, since academic success predicts a range of important life outcomes such as health, well‐being, community involvement and income, these benefits can continue well into adult life (Brady, Cohen, Jarvis, & Walton, 2020). A powerful aspect of this process is that it gains its own momentum and does not require the students to even remember any details about the initial intervention: in one study, only 8% of the participants actually remembered the key message of the intervention 3 years after it had taken place, and yet its benefits were evident a full 11 years later among the students who took part (Brady et al., 2020; Walton & Cohen, 2011).…”

Section: Wise Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A follow‐up study assessed their outcomes as adults at average age 27, seven to 11 years after they received the intervention. Impressively, they reported significantly greater career satisfaction and success, psychological well‐being, and community involvement and leadership (Brady et al., 2020). White students, in contrast, showed only small gains in these outcomes, none of which reached statistical significance.…”

Section: Wise Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tackling Educational Inequalities with Social Psychology: Identities, Contexts, and Interventions

Easterbrook

Hadden

2020

Social Issues Policy Review

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Some groups of students-typically those who have suffered because of historical inequality in society-disproportionately experience psychological barriers to educational success. These psychological barriers-feelings of threat to their social identity and the sense that their identity is incompatible with educational success-make substantial contributions to inequalities in educational outcomes between groups, even beyond economic, historical, and structural inequalities. A range of wise psychological interventions can help remove these barriers by targeting students' subjective interpretation of their local educational context. In this review, we outline the Identities in Context model of educational inequalities, which proposes that interactions between students' social identities and features of the local educational context-expectations about a group's academic performance, a group's representation in positions associated with academic success, and a group's orientation towards education-can trigger social identity threat and identity incompatibility in ways that vary considerably across contexts. We present an implementation process, based on the Identities in Context model, that academic researchers, policymakers, and practitioners can follow to help them choose and tailor wise interventions that are effective in reducing educational inequalities in their local context. Throughout the review, we make policy recommendations regarding how educational practices can be altered to help remove psychological barriers for underperforming groups of students and so reduce educational inequalities. Some groups of students-such as some ethnic minorities or those from lower class backgrounds-on average achieve much lower academic grades and

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“…Similarly, social-belonging interventions do not single out disadvantaged students as negatively stereotyped groups who need special attention. Instead, they support these students to realize how common their worries are among all students, and the transitory nature of such concerns (e.g., Walton & Cohen, 2011; Brady et al, 2020).…”

Section: Recommendations For Implementing Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing Students’ Beliefs About Learning Can Unveil Their Potential

O’Keefe

Lee

Chen

2021

Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences

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Too often, students fall short of their potential. Although structural and cognitive factors can contribute to this underperformance, how students subjectively construe themselves and their educational contexts can also play significant roles. Social-psychological interventions can increase student motivation, resilience, and achievement by altering these construals. To provide general recommendations for their implementation, we focus on interventions that address common student concerns, which stem from maladaptive beliefs that (a) intelligence cannot be improved; (b) some academic topics are uninteresting and personally irrelevant; (c) learning is an unplanned, passive activity; and (d) others think that “people like me” do not have the potential for success. These interventions tend to be relatively brief, easily implemented, highly scalable, and low in cost, time, and labor. Through a partnership of psychological scientists and practitioners, these carefully contextualized, theory-driven interventions can help students achieve their potential.

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A brief social-belonging intervention in college improves adult outcomes for black Americans

Cited by 109 publications

References 48 publications

Identifying with all humanity predicts cooperative health behaviors and helpful responding during COVID-19

Identifying with all humanity predicts cooperative health behaviors and helpful responding during COVID-19

Tackling Educational Inequalities with Social Psychology: Identities, Contexts, and Interventions

Changing Students’ Beliefs About Learning Can Unveil Their Potential

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