5_1 : Walton Social Belonging

Question 1

What are the key concepts in what we read?

Answer 1

Belonging Uncertainty

• This may be felt more acutely when people enter settings in which their social group is negatively stereotyped or underrepresented
• Sense of belonging
• Academic & health-related consequences over 3 years

Question 2

What question(s) did the author(s) set out to answer?

Answer 2

Does having an increased sense of belonging affect college students academic achievement

Question 3

How did the author(s) go about studying their research question(s)?

Answer 3

Method**

Sample:
- N = 49 - African American
- N = 43 - European American
- N = 92
- 6% black pop at UCLA, 8% at Stanford, all of California black and AA students is 5.52%

Procedure**

• randomized 2 intervention groups in a 1-hour sessions
  
  • condition belonging intervention
    1. read the narrative - of an undergrad who wrote about their adversity-shared and short-lived
  2. Write an essay - about their own experiences that echoed the narrative. they felt alone at first but then it went away over time
  3. Then they had to read their essay out loud into a camera; made them feel more committed saying is believing ; they want to see themselves as a povider of the message not the recipient
  • Control group
    
    • the same process but the report was not on belongingness

Question 4

What did they find? (overall)

Answer 4

Overall
- AA students who received the intervention (Condition) had increasing GPAs and sense of belonging throughout their 4 years in college
- AA Control group (no intervetion) did not have any improvement in their GPA
- EA - GPA rose over time, control = condition
- Gap between the GPAS in AA and EA closed over time (those in intervention)

Question 5

What did they find amongst 1 week-post treatment

Answer 5

Daily surveys: 1 week post-treatment

• Among AA students:
  
  • control group (no intervention); feelings of belonging rose and fell with a degree of recent adversity
    
    • There was a steady line of GPA, no big significant differences
  • treatment group: their sense of belonging was unrelated to daily hardship; hardships didn’t affect their sense of belonging
    
    • closed a gap by 79%, there was an increase in GPA over time

Question 6

Results at the end of college/ senior year ?

Answer 6

• AA showed consistent treatment effects
  
  • reported greater stability in and less uncertainty about belonging in school
  • Reported being healthier and visiting doctor less frequently
  • Had higher subjective happiness
• On none of these measures did Euro-Americans differ by condition
  
  • Why? bc they are the majority, they already felt like they belonged, their sense of belonging was never threatened, they were ceiling results already

At the end of senior year**

• Only 14% of reported that the study had an effect on their college experience
  
  • The effectiveness of this study didn’t depend on your awareness of the study
• Only 8% of the students could remember the key content of the report they read

Question 7

Key to intervention

Answer 7

• People subjective interpretations of the quality of their relationships more so than their objective number of attributes of those relationships; strongly affect well-being**
  
  • This experience happens and then there’s a subjective interpretation of what happened, and this is more important when evaluating your quality of relationship with these people subjective is more important than objective
• Intervention might initiate positive feedback loop**
  
  • “virtuous cycle” (like a vicious cycle, but in a good way) you have one positive interpretation of an outcome and then it affects everything after

Question 8

Why should we care?

Answer 8

1. Inequality in academic performance and health arise, at least in part. from concerns about social belonging
   
   • Psychological interventions can mitigate concerns and improve academic performance and health
2. The impact of adversity depends on its perceived meaning
   
   • Some ppl will blame victim blaming and say that its student’s fault for not feeling like they belong
3. Social belonging is a psychological lever that impacts health & achievement

Question 9

This article about social belonging

Answer 9

described an intervention study

Question 10

When AA students received an intervention that encouraged them to believe social adversity in school is common and temporary…

Answer 10

• The gap between their GPA and those of their EA classmates closed over time
• They reported better physical health in later years than those who didn’t receive treatment
• They reported being happier in later years than those who didn’t receive the treatment
• They were generally unaware of the treatment effects