TY - JOUR
T1 - Incentivizing education
T2 - Seeing schoolwork as an investment, not a chore
AU - Destin, Mesmin
AU - Oyserman, Daphna
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding for this study was provided by the Michigan Prevention Research Training Grant (NIH Grant number T32 MH63057 ), by an NIH grant to Daphna Oyserman (NIH Grant number R01 MH58299) and by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship .
PY - 2010/9
Y1 - 2010/9
N2 - Most American children expect to attend college but because they do not necessarily spend much time on schoolwork, they may fail to reach their imagined " college-bound" future self. The proposed identity-based motivation model helps explain why this gap occurs: Imagined " college-bound" identities cue school-focused behavior if they are salient and feel relevant to current choice options, not otherwise. Two studies with predominantly low-income and African American middle school students support this prediction. Almost all of the students expect to attend college, but only half describe education-dependent (e.g., law, medicine) adult identities. Having education-dependent rather than education-independent adult identities (e.g., sports, entertainment) predicts better grades over time, controlling for prior grade point average (Study 1). To demonstrate causality, salience of education-dependent vs. education-independent adult identities was experimentally manipulated. Children who considered education-dependent adult identities (vs. education-independent ones) were eight times more likely to complete a take-home extra-credit assignment (Study 2).
AB - Most American children expect to attend college but because they do not necessarily spend much time on schoolwork, they may fail to reach their imagined " college-bound" future self. The proposed identity-based motivation model helps explain why this gap occurs: Imagined " college-bound" identities cue school-focused behavior if they are salient and feel relevant to current choice options, not otherwise. Two studies with predominantly low-income and African American middle school students support this prediction. Almost all of the students expect to attend college, but only half describe education-dependent (e.g., law, medicine) adult identities. Having education-dependent rather than education-independent adult identities (e.g., sports, entertainment) predicts better grades over time, controlling for prior grade point average (Study 1). To demonstrate causality, salience of education-dependent vs. education-independent adult identities was experimentally manipulated. Children who considered education-dependent adult identities (vs. education-independent ones) were eight times more likely to complete a take-home extra-credit assignment (Study 2).
KW - Academic achievement
KW - Future identity
KW - Motivation
KW - Possible selves
KW - Race
KW - Social cognition
KW - Socioeconomic status
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77955570380&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jesp.2010.04.004
DO - 10.1016/j.jesp.2010.04.004
M3 - Article
C2 - 20824201
AN - SCOPUS:77955570380
SN - 0022-1031
VL - 46
SP - 846
EP - 849
JO - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
JF - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
IS - 5
ER -