By Ross E. O'Hara, Psychology Today, June 14, 2021
Through three parts of my series, Nudges for Equity, I’ve written about how students of color can reframe their college experiences to mitigate identity threats. First, they can view stressful moments through the lens of a growth mindset and respond to those events with a challenge appraisal. Students can also reframe the college environment. Reflecting on how college aligns with one’s interdependent values, such as being motivated by family and working collaboratively with others, can reduce stress and improve academic performance.
Interdependent values may also play a key role in self-affirmation interventions. In a typical affirmation exercise, students choose their top three values from a curated list—things like relationships, sense of humor, athleticism, religious beliefs, or creativity—and then write a brief essay about why one of those values is important to them. In theory, this practice insulates their self-identity against the slings and arrows of higher education, including structural inequities, stereotype threat, underrepresentation, and micro-aggressions. Many studies have shown that self-affirmations boost academic performance for underrepresented students who face belongingness threats (e.g., Latinx students, women in physics, first-generation students in STEM).
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