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Psychologically “wise” interventions can cause lasting improvement in key aspects of people’s lives, but where will they work, and where will they not work? We consider the psychological affordance of the social context: Does the context in which the intervention is delivered afford the way of thinking offered by the intervention? If not, treatment effects are unlikely to persist. Change requires planting good seeds (more adaptive perspectives) in fertile soil in which those seeds can grow (a context with appropriate affordances). We illustrate the role of psychological affordances in diverse problem spaces, including recent large-scale trials of growth-mind-set and social-belonging interventions designed specifically to investigate heterogeneity across contexts. We highlight how the study of psychological affordances can advance theory about social contexts and inform debates about replicability.
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Contextualizing Social Psychology Interventions
Interventions are often deployed in different populations and varying contexts with a “one-size fits all approach.” In this poster, we underline the importance of mindfully adapting social psychological interventions for specific contexts and populations (Yeager & Walton, 2011). Without careful tweaks to contextualize some interventions, uncontextualized interventions may not be as successful. For instance, we report a study testing (uncontextualized) a social psychological intervention (values affirmation) at Cal Poly Pomona, which did not replicate significant findings for closing achievement gaps among underrepresented minorities and first-generation students. The intervention may not have resonated within the Cal Poly Pomona’s context and population of predominately Hispanic and Latinx students. We will discuss lessons learned and delineate an iterative intervention design and contextualizing methodology that may augment intervention success and exemplify our approach through our work contextualizing the Social Belonging intervention (Walton, Murphy, Logel, & Yeager, 2017) to more adequately address the needs of Cal Poly Pomona’s Hispanic and Latinx population.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1832405
- PAR ID:
- 10192160
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Society for Personality and Social Psychology Intervention Science Preconference
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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