Resourceful Actors, Not Weak Victims: Reframing Refugees’ Stigmatized Identity Enhances Long-Term Academic Engagement
开发了一个约10分钟的干预措施，通过阅读和写作练习重构难民身份为力量和技能的来源，实验表明该干预提升了难民的自信心和挑战意愿，并在后续一年中将在线学习参与度提高23%。
Refugees suffer from a stigmatized identity portraying them as weak, unskilled victims. We developed a brief (~10-min) intervention that reframed refugees’ identity as being, by its very nature, a source of strength and skills. Reading and writing exercises, provided by a university, highlighted how refugees’ experiences helped them acquire skills such as perseverance and the ability to cope with adversity, which could help them succeed in a new country. In Experiment 1 ( N = 93), the intervention boosted refugees’ (a) confidence in their ability to succeed at an imagined university and (b) challenge seeking: Participants were 70% more likely to take on an academic exercise labeled as difficult. In Experiment 2, the intervention, delivered to refugees entering an online university ( N = 533), increased engagement in the online-learning environment by 23% over the subsequent year. There was also evidence of greater course completion. It is possible to reframe stigmatized individuals’ identity as inherently strong and resourceful, helping them put their strengths to use.