Yang Jilong, Zhao Yue, Ji Yuexin, Ma Jiaxin, Li Lanyu, Hu Xiaoyong
The Open University of Guangdong, Guangdong Polytechnic Institute, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510091, People's Republic of China.
Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, People's Republic of China.
Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2023 Sep 4;16:3607-3621. doi: 10.2147/PRBM.S419112. eCollection 2023.
Drawing from the sociocultural-self model, this study aims to examine the influence of self-affirmation on the academic outcomes of lower-class migrant students, as well as the psychological mechanism underlying this phenomenon.
A field experiment was conducted at a comprehensive secondary school in the southern region of China. Our study sample comprised 1534 immigrant students from diverse regions across the country, with an average proportion of 59.6% of students registered with a rural hukou. The hukou system plays a pivotal role in measuring social class in China, thus it was used as a proxy for lower and higher social class, with rural hukou students considered to be lower-class and urban hukou students considered to be higher-class. Prior to the English test, students in the self-affirmed group were engaged in a brief writing exercise that focused on their core values, whereas the control group wrote about a neutral topic.
The primary outcome of interest was the effect of self-affirmation on English test scores, whereas the secondary outcome was the students' survey stereotype threat. The results exhibit that self-affirmation more significantly improved the English test performance of lower-class students compared to higher-class students, and this positive effect was mediated by reducing stereotype threat.
Our findings unravel the impact of self-affirmation on the academic performance of migrant students from different social classes and signify the mediating role of stereotype threat in this process. The present study extends previous findings to students from immigrant families in the Chinese cultural context, and these findings demonstrate that self-affirmation can constitute a promising intervention for stereotype threat and achievement gaps due to social class differences in immigrant family groups. Considering that this intervention takes only about 15 minutes of time, entails almost zero cost, does no harm, and that it focuses on disadvantaged immigrant students, it may provide valuable insights for educational policies to be implemented in a new type of migrant city such as Shenzhen.
本研究借鉴社会文化自我模型，旨在探讨自我肯定对下层阶级农民工子女学业成绩的影响，以及这一现象背后的心理机制。
在中国南方一所综合性中学进行了一项现场实验。我们的研究样本包括来自全国各地不同地区的1534名移民学生，平均有59.6%的学生为农村户口。户口制度在中国衡量社会阶层方面起着关键作用，因此它被用作划分社会阶层高低的指标，农村户口学生被视为下层阶级，城市户口学生被视为上层阶级。在英语测试前，自我肯定组的学生参与了一项聚焦于其核心价值观的简短写作练习，而对照组则写了一个中性话题。
主要关注的结果是自我肯定对英语测试成绩的影响，次要结果是学生的调查刻板印象威胁。结果表明，与上层阶级学生相比，自我肯定对下层阶级学生英语测试成绩的提升更为显著，且这种积极影响是通过减少刻板印象威胁来介导的。
我们的研究结果揭示了自我肯定对来自不同社会阶层的农民工子女学业成绩的影响，并表明刻板印象威胁在此过程中的中介作用。本研究将先前的研究结果扩展到中国文化背景下的移民家庭学生，这些结果表明，自我肯定可以成为一种有前景的干预措施，以应对移民家庭群体中因社会阶层差异导致的刻板印象威胁和成绩差距。鉴于这种干预只需大约15分钟时间，成本几乎为零，无害，且关注弱势移民学生，它可能为在深圳等新型移民城市实施的教育政策提供有价值的见解。
