It's called an affirmation exercise, and it's previously been validated in race stereotype-threat studies in elementary school classrooms. The effects are very long lasting - two scientists found that they last over an entire academic year for African American kids in mixed-race classrooms. The black kids who did the exercise had consistently higher grades than the ones who did not, and their grades were about on par with the white kids in their classroom
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I only have a BA in psych, but for my 4th year experimental class, my partner and I did our project on the effect of journalling exercises on mood, and it had the same kind of effect as the affirmation exercises. People who journalled even a few times a week, even if they weren't writing positive things, felt some elevation in mood. It was really cool.
And that's really interesting that the affirmations need to be in a different domain. Are there any studies that touch on why that might be?
Oh no! I was all set to try this strategy on myself. Too bad it won't work as well now... On the other hand, it's bound to make some difference, so I'll do it anyway. Hopefully they'll find that way to make it just as effective when people know what they're doing soon.
It might make a difference. Psychologists study averages; I'll amend my statement to say that they found is on average it doesn't work in the majority of people on a statistically significant level. You may not be in that majority. The other problem with statistical significance is that it's an arbitrary number; you have to be 95% confident that the results you got (in this case, higher scores) didn't just happen by chance. If you're only 80% sure or even only 94% sure, by the stats, you can't report a result as significant. I've don't know what their values were, but I will say that some people have found that saying "I can do this" before a test or difficult task helps build their confidence, at least. And anyway, trying can't hurt!
For what it's worth, there was a book I heard about on NPR last year talking about ways to boost self-esteem. It used the same method. I can't remember the title. Perhaps someone else here knows what I'm talking about.
yeah, i'm a bit confused too. that's not really a control. although i think that it was maybe a way to affirm to the students that the values they are constantly bombarded with that they don't agree with (including but not limited to that men are good at science and women are not) can have valid explanations behind them? but still not exactly a control...
For example, how do we know the effect isn't from just the act of writing, or of thinking deeply? How do we know the effect isn't from thinking about "values" in general?
The way they set it up is clever: the control group also wrote a journal, so they know it isn't the journaling that does it; the control group also thought about values, so they know it isn't moral thought that does it; it has to be specifically self affirming journaling that does it.
So you don't even write directly about the domain, you write about your life values? That's interesting. It suggests that stereotype threat doesn't just attack your beliefs about your abilities in physics (or whatever other stereotypically male field you're in), it attacks your general self esteem, and that's what you have to raise in order to do better in physics.
What's awesome about this method is that it's so simple and yet so effective. Sometimes the existence of stereotypes and biases can make me feel hopeless in the face of them, but clearly they are not as robust as I thought.
I don't know that the fact that you have to write in a different domain means that stereotype threat attacks your general self-esteem - although that's an interesting way of thinking about it, and I don't think anyone's measured it. It'd be important to find out! I think the prevailing hypothesis is that even affirming yourself in the domain focuses your attention on that and unconsciously intensifies the stereotype threat. But hm, it sounds like something researchers should definitely look into...
This article is very interesting. However, is there any particular reason it got the "science proving what we knew" tag? I mean, did we actually know writing "I'm a good cook and people think I'm funny" or whatever would improve people's performance in physics?
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And that's really interesting that the affirmations need to be in a different domain. Are there any studies that touch on why that might be?
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For what it's worth, there was a book I heard about on NPR last year talking about ways to boost self-esteem. It used the same method. I can't remember the title. Perhaps someone else here knows what I'm talking about.
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Shouldn't the control group have done nothing at all? I'm confused!
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For example, how do we know the effect isn't from just the act of writing, or of thinking deeply? How do we know the effect isn't from thinking about "values" in general?
The way they set it up is clever: the control group also wrote a journal, so they know it isn't the journaling that does it; the control group also thought about values, so they know it isn't moral thought that does it; it has to be specifically self affirming journaling that does it.
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What's awesome about this method is that it's so simple and yet so effective. Sometimes the existence of stereotypes and biases can make me feel hopeless in the face of them, but clearly they are not as robust as I thought.
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