The Psychology of the Affirmed Learner: Spontaneous Self-Affirmation in the Face of Stress
The Psychology of the Affirmed Learner: Spontaneous Self-Affirmation in the Face of Stress
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DOI：
10.1037/edu0000091
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发表时间：
2016-04-01
影响因子：
4.9
通讯作者：
Cohen, Geoffrey L.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Brady, Shannon T.;Reeves, Stephanie L.;Cohen, Geoffrey L.
关于成就动机的一个关键问题是如何在面对压力和逆境时保持它。本研究探讨了社会心理干预引发的激励过程如何在很长一段时间内传播利益，并在人们解释随后的逆境的方式上产生持久的转变。在大学的第一年或第二年，183名拉丁裔和白色学生完成了价值观肯定干预或控制练习作为实验室研究的一部分。在肯定干预中，学生们写下了一个核心的个人价值观，在以前的研究中发现，这种做法可以缓冲少数民族学生在学校被负面定型的压力。这一单一的肯定提高了拉丁美洲学生的大学平均成绩（GPA）超过2年。在这2年结束时，学生们被重新招募参加后续会议。结果表明，GPA的好处发生，部分原因是因为肯定转移的方式，拉丁美洲学生自发地回应随后的压力。特别是，在回应一个关于他们的期末要求的学术压力突出任务，肯定的拉丁美洲学生自发地产生更多的自我肯定和自我威胁的想法和感受，由一个开放式的写作提示评估。他们还报告说，通过自我完整性、自尊和希望以及更高的学术归属感来评估，他们对自己的适当性有了更大的感觉。讨论的中心是动机过程如何以及为什么会引发持续时间长得令人惊讶的效果。
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.