Chronic threat and contingent belonging: Protective benefits of values affirmation on identity development.

In the citing paper

“Another study in U.S. schools found that feelings of belonging among Black students who did not take part in a values affirmation intervention were more variable and more strongly related to their grades than they were for other groups (Cook, Purdie-Vaughns, Garcia, & Cohen, 2012)”

In the citing paper

“The changes in interpretations that these interventions trigger reduce students' sense of threat and boost their sense that they fit in the academic world, thus improving academic performance (Cook et al., 2012;Shnabel, Purdie-Vaughns, Cook, Garcia, & Cohen, 2013).”

In the citing paper

“Second, because a threat is seen in the context of an expansive view of the self, it has less impact on psychological well-being (Cohen et al. 2009, Cook et al. 2012, Sherman et al. 2013).”

In the citing paper

“Indeed, over two years, minority students saw their sense of belonging in school fall, as if successive adversities reinforced the narrative that they did not belong (Cook et al. 2012).”

In the citing paper

“Among nonaffirmed minority students, a poor grade or a stressful day predicted a lower sense of belonging in school and a higher sense of racial threat (see Cook et al. 2012, Sherman et al. 2013).”

In the citing paper

“Consistent with this, several findings suggest that self-affirmed minorities were more likely to see adversity as an isolated event rather than a threat to self (see Cook et al. 2012;Sherman et al. 2013, study 2).”

In the citing paper

“Affirmed students experienced many of the same stressors and slights as others but without the detrimental impact that nonaffirmed students experienced.”

In the citing paper

“Self-affirmed individuals narrate adversity in a manner that better maintains the adequacy of the self and helps them to adaptively engage with threats; this narrative can build on itself over time”

In the citing paper

“For instance, months after the intervention had commenced, affirmed minority students had a more robust identity as a person who belongs in school and were resilient to ongoing threats”

In the citing paper

“Their experiences throughout the school year made the affirmed and nonaffirmed increasingly dissimilar, as their felt belonging in school diverged with time”

In the citing paper

“In a field experiment, affirmation benefited minority students' classroom grades more if it took place in the first week of school, before any drop in performance and its ensuing psychological toll, than if it took place at the standard time a few weeks later”

In the citing paper

“When African Americans performed poorly early in the school year, they suffered a drop in their sense of academic belonging and did not recoup it even if their grades later improved”

In the citing paper

“Affirmed African Americans, however, were buffered against the effects of early adversity.”