These pre-conditions were required to successfully conduct the study:
- Schools have the proper materials, social, and psychological resources to allow for these positive academic results.
- Students must have the skills needed to perform significantly better.

University of Georgia

The goal of this study is to improve minority students' performance and to better understand how psychological threats can undermine self-integrity, leading to poor academic performance. Researchers tested whether psychological threats can be lessened by reaffirming self-integrity, thus improving academic performance amongst negatively stereotyped minority students. 

Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap: A Social-Psychological Intervention- Goals of Study

Cohen, G. L., Apfel, N., Garcia, J., & Master, A. (2006). Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap: A Social-Psychological Intervention. Science, 313(5791), 1307-1310. DOI:10.1126/science.1128317

Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap: A Social-Psychological Intervention

There are three assumptions made at the beginning of the study:
- People are motivated to maintain self-integrity
- Group memberships are an important aspect of self-integrity, so negative group characterizations can be a threat to self-integrity
- If a psychological threat is too severe, it can undermine performance

- On average, African Americans' stress levels in the academic setting are raised to a crippling level, which can hinder performance because of the psychological threat associated with the negative stereotype regarding the intelligence of their race. 
- People in minority groups might worry that performing poorly could confirm the negative stereotype of their minority group, which can create chronic stress.

Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap: A Social-Psychological Intervention- Introduction

Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap: A Social-Psychological Intervention- Pre-conditions

This double-blind, field experiment consisted of over 200 seventh-grade students, who were taking the same class subject, ranging from lower-middle-class families to middle-class families. Half of the students were African Americans, and half were European Americans. This experiment took place at the beginning of the fall semester when evaluative stress is assumed to be high. Students in the class were assigned to either be in the control group, or the treatment (affirmation) group, and all students were given an exercise to complete individually and silently. The exercise contained a list of (personal) values (such as being good at drawing), and the students in the affirmation group were instructed to indicate their most important value, while students in the control group were instructed to indicate their least important value. The students in the treatment (affirmation) group then wrote a paragraph indicating why their chosen value is important to them. The students in the control group also wrote a paragraph but indicated why the chosen value might be important to someone else. Finally, students in the treatment group indicated their level of agreement with the statement "I care about these values", while students in the control group indicated their level of agreement with the statement "some people care about these values" (Cohen, 2006). The data from this experiment was combined with data from a replicative study, the only difference being how many values the student indicated. 

Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap: A Social-Psychological Intervention- Procedure

African American students in the treatment (affirmation) condition earned a higher fall-term GPA in the targeted course, compared to those in the control condition, where there was no effect on performance. The affirmation treatment proved to be equally as effective for poor and moderate performing students but was not as effective for high performing students. The impact of the treatment benefited almost 70% of African American students in the study. The average performance gap between African American and European American students in this study was a .75 grade point difference, for the fall term in the targeted course. The treatment effect for African American students in the affirmation group was .26 grade points (in study 1), and the chance of observing two effects of this magnitude by chance is 1 in 5000. The treatment effect lowered this racial achievement gap by 40% in the targeted course. The rate of poor performance, in the targeted course, amongst African American students in the control group was 20%, while it was 9% in the treatment group. Because of these effects, the effect on overall GPA was virtually as significant as it was on the grade in the targeted course (P < .02). There was no treatment effect for European Americans and no variance between condition groups.


Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap: A Social-Psychological Intervention- Findings

This study demonstrates how psychological threats and poor academic performance are related and build off of each other. The findings show that diminishing psychological threat based on race can positively impact academic achievement in the targeted minority group, while not hindering the performance of the non-targeted group. Just as psychological threats can be a catalyst for the cycle of poor performance, a reduction in psychological threats can be a catalyst for the cycle of improving performance. The treatment in this study can create an accumulation of smaller improvements that can turn into a larger improvement on the student as a whole. The researchers concluded that the treatment of affirmation reduced the psychological availability of stereotypes in the targeted students' minds, which can lead to a change in African American students' views about academic success and defeat in the long run.

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