Previous experiments have shown that college students benefit when they understand that challenges in the transition to college are common and improvable and, thus, that early struggles need not portend a permanent lack of belonging or potential. Could such an approach-called a lay theory intervention-be effective before college matriculation? Could this strategy reduce a portion of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic achievement gaps for entire institutions? Three double-blind experiments tested this possibility. Ninety percent of first-year college students from three institutions were randomly assigned to complete single-session, online lay theory or control materials before matriculation (n > 9,500). The lay theory interventions raised first-year full-time college enrollment among students from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds exiting a high-performing charter high school network or entering a public flagship university (experiments 1 and 2) and, at a selective private university, raised disadvantaged students' cumulative first-year grade point average (experiment 3). These gains correspond to 31-40% reductions of the raw (unadjusted) institutional achievement gaps between students from disadvantaged and nondisadvantaged backgrounds at those institutions. Further, follow-up surveys suggest that the interventions improved disadvantaged students' overall college experiences, promoting use of student support services and the development of friendship networks and mentor relationships. This research therefore provides a basis for further tests of the generalizability of preparatory lay theories interventions and of their potential to reduce social inequality and improve other major life transitions. inequality | behavioral science | field experiment | social psychology | lay theories

In a nationally representative sample, first-year U.S. college students “somewhat agree,” on average, that they feel like they belong at their school. However, belonging varies by key institutional and student characteristics; of note, racial-ethnic minority and first-generation students report lower belonging than peers at 4-year schools, while the opposite is true at 2-year schools. Further, at 4-year schools, belonging predicts better persistence, engagement, and mental health even after extensive covariate adjustment. Although descriptive, these patterns highlight the need to better measure and understand belonging and related psychological factors that may promote college students’ success and well-being.

A key question about achievement motivation is how to maintain it over time and in the face of stress and adversity. The present research examines how a motivational process triggered by a social-psychological intervention propagates benefits over a long period of time and creates an enduring shift in the way people interpret subsequent adversity. During their first or second year of college, 183 Latino and White students completed either a values affirmation intervention or control exercise as part of a laboratory study. In the affirmation intervention, students wrote about a core personal value, an exercise that has been found in previous research to buffer minority students against the stress of being negatively stereotyped in school. This single affirmation improved the college grade point average (GPA) of Latino students over 2 years. Students were re-recruited for a follow-up session near the end of those 2 years. Results indicated that GPA benefits occurred, in part, because the affirmation shifted the way Latino students spontaneously responded to subsequent stressors. In particular, in response to an academic stressor salience task about their end-of-semester requirements, affirmed Latino students spontaneously generated more self-affirming and less self-threatening thoughts and feelings as assessed by an open-ended writing prompt. They also reported having a greater sense of their adequacy as assessed by measures of self-integrity, self-esteem, and hope, as well as higher academic belonging. Discussion centers on how and why motivational processes can trigger effects that persist over surprisingly long periods of time.

The idea that test anxiety hurts performance is deeply ingrained in American culture and schools. However, researchers have found that it is actually worry about performance and anxiety-not bodily feelings of anxiety (emotionality)-that impairs performance. Drawing on this insight, anxiety reappraisal interventions encourage the view that anxiety can be neutral or even helpful. Initial evidence-largely from laboratory studies-suggests that these kinds of reappraisal interventions can improve student performance in mathematics. But can they do so in other domains and within the constraints of everyday classroom activities? If so, for whom and how? In an intervention study, we tested whether a minimal reappraisal message embedded in an email from course instructors could improve students' academic experience and performance in an introductory college course. The night before their first exam, students received an e-mail that either did or did not include a paragraph designed to lead them to interpret exam anxiety as beneficial or at least neutral. First-year students, who experience greater test anxiety and are less certain about how to perform well, benefited from the reappraisal message, showing decreased worry and increased performance on the exam the next day as well as increased performance in the course overall. Mediation analyses revealed that the effect on overall course performance for first-year students was partially mediated by reduced exam worry and enhanced performance on the first exam. The message did not affect the performance of upper year students. Educational Impact and Implications StatementThe idea that test anxiety hurts performance is deeply ingrained in American culture and schools, but researchers have found that it is students' worry about performance and anxiety-not the bodily feeling of anxiety itself-that impairs performance. Can teaching students that anxiety will not necessarily hurt their performance on an upcoming test reduce students' worry and help them perform better? We find that it can: exposure to a message designed to share this insight before the first exam in a college psychology course reduced the worry and improved the academic performance of first-year (but not upper year) students. Our findings indicate that the academic benefits of this kind of anxiety reappraisal intervention are not limited to the domain of math, as prior research suggested, and they may be greater for students with less experience and greater worry. These findings are important because they suggest a highly scalable means of decreasing test-related worry and enhancing academic performance in vulnerable students.

Could mitigating persistent worries about belonging in the transition to college improve adult life for black Americans? To examine this question, we conducted a long-term follow-up of a randomized social-belonging intervention delivered in the first year of college. This 1-hour exercise represented social and academic adversity early in college as common and temporary. As previously reported in Science, the exercise improved black students’ grades and well-being in college. The present study assessed the adult outcomes of these same participants. Examining adult life at an average age of 27, black adults who had received the treatment (versus control) exercise 7 to 11 years earlier reported significantly greater career satisfaction and success, psychological well-being, and community involvement and leadership. Gains were statistically mediated by greater college mentorship. The results suggest that addressing persistent social-psychological concerns via psychological intervention can shape the life course, partly by changing people’s social realities.