A Brief Social-Belonging Intervention Improves Academic and Health Outcomes of Minority Students
Abstract
A brief intervention aimed at buttressing college freshmen’s sense of social belonging in school was tested in a randomized controlled trial (N = 92), and its academic and health-related consequences over 3 years are reported. The intervention aimed to lessen psychological perceptions of threat on campus by framing social adversity as common and transient. It used subtle attitude-change strategies to lead participants to self-generate the intervention message. The intervention was expected to be particularly beneficial to African-American students (N = 49), a stereotyped and socially marginalized group in academics, and less so to European-American students (N = 43). Consistent with these expectations, over the 3-year observation period the intervention raised African Americans’ grade-point average (GPA) relative to multiple control groups and halved the minority achievement gap. This performance boost was mediated by the effect of the intervention on subjective construal: It prevented students from seeing adversity on campus as an indictment of their belonging. Additionally, the intervention improved African Americans’ self-reported health and well-being and reduced their reported number of doctor visits 3 years postintervention. Senior-year surveys indicated no awareness among participants of the intervention’s impact. The results suggest that social belonging is a psychological lever where targeted intervention can have broad consequences that lessen inequalities in achievement and health.
Supplementary Material
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Science
Volume 331 | Issue 6023
18 March 2011
18 March 2011
Copyright
Copyright © 2011, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Submission history
Received: 28 September 2010
Accepted: 14 February 2011
Published in print: 18 March 2011
Acknowledgments
We thank participating students and helpful administrators at an anonymous university for their involvement. We also thank P. Carr, E. Chen, C. Dweck, C. Logel, G. Miller, D. Paunesku, D. Sherman, S. Spencer, C. Steele, and D. Yeager for input and L. Cai, K. Crockett, J. Darwall, L. Egan, A. Master, M. Silverio, and R. Titcombe for assistance. This research was supported by grants from the American Psychological Association, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and the Spencer Foundation awarded to G.M.W. and by a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation awarded to G.L.C.