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The struggle to find community in college is a growing issue tied to identity, mental health, and institutional support; without a sense of belonging, students often face social isolation and academic challenges, but with intentional practices, colleges can help students feel seen, supported, and connected.

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“It's like when we feel alone and disconnected, we're on the defensive. And that creates a whole host of problems” (Cohen 13).

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Geoffrey Cohen, professor of psychology and the James G. March Professor of Organizational Studies in Education and Business at Stanford University, discussed his book Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides with Beverly Daniel Tatum, interim president of Mount Holyoke College, president emerita of Spelman College, and a clinical psychologist with expertise in race relations. Their conversation took place April 12, 2023, as part of the Academic Innovation for the Public Good book series. Here are the video and transcript of the event.

Transcript
This transcript has been edited; introductory and closing remarks from the live event have been removed.
Beverly Daniel Tatum: I am really pleased to be here in conversation with my friend and fellow psychologist Dr. Geoff Cohen, whose work I have admired for many years. As you've heard, he is the author of a very important book, Belonging, The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides. And I had the good fortune of being asked to review an advanced copy of the book. And I want to read you what I said about it. It appears now as the blurb on the back of the jacket.

"Belonging is a masterpiece of social psychology. Well researched, highly engaging, and fundamentally useful to anyone who wants to bring out the best in themselves and others, whether at school, at home, or in the workplace. At a time of so much social disruption and disconnection, Geoffrey Cohen has provided a very helpful and profoundly hopeful guide rooted in well-tested psychological principles that we urgently need. Everyone should read this book."

And, indeed, everyone should. Belonging, The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides. The title tells you that this book is not just about anecdotal observations and personal insights. It's about rigorously tested psychological concepts that can change how we experience our environment and our relationships with each other at school, at work, at home, and elsewhere.

And it's full of science-based solutions. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. So let's start with the core concept in the title of the book, Geoff, Belonging. What do you mean by belonging? And why is that so important?

Geoffrey Cohen: Oh, thank you so much, Beverly. It's such a pleasure to be here. And thank you, everyone, in the audience. It's lovely to be here with you. I'm really excited to be here in conversation with you, Beverly. And I think that belonging, which seems like a vague term, it kind of encompasses a general feeling that we have when we sense that we're a valued part of a larger group.

We feel like we matter to the group and the group matters to us. And we also feel like we can kind of be our authentic self there. So we feel like our authentic self is welcomed. And so that's what belonging is. And I love this statement from Marina Keegan who tragically passed away. She was a Yale undergraduate. And she referred to this idea of belonging as - it was like the opposite of loneliness.

The opposite of loneliness. It's not quite love but it's that sense of, that there are people in your corner, that there are people in your corner who are there, who have your back, and that you have their back. And as a human species, we really evolved to belong. We need other people to get through this life and to go on these adventures throughout life together. And it's a very fundamental need.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: So every book has a back story. And you've described very compellingly what belonging is, that feeling of the opposite of loneliness. But why this book? Why now? Why did you take this subject up?

Geoffrey Cohen: Belonging is a perennially important problem. It's a perennially important problem. How do we create a truly inclusive society where all feel they belong? You could say that this has been something that we've been toiling with as a human species for millennia, for centuries. And so this is a perennial problem. And it is on high volume now. I think, throughout society - Pete Buttigieg used this, had this way of describing the moment we're in historically as a crisis of belonging, a crisis of belonging.

Too many people, too many people feel disconnected from the rest of humanity. For example, the number - the percentage of Americans who are chronically lonely, which is a really terrible, terrible psychological state with awful health conditions, health consequences, is roughly one in four, one in four.

Meanwhile, as we try to get reintegrated, as students try to get reintegrated into schools, workers into workplaces, it is a big problem of how to create settings where people feel comfortable and feel like they belong after - in this post-pandemic era.

And the research - I look at myself as a curator for all the amazing research being done by social psychologists, sociologists, other people in social sciences, especially here at Stanford. The research suggests that when that need to belong is thwarted or defeated, there's a whole suite of negative consequences, ranging from poor mental health, physical and mental health, polarization, extremism, susceptibility, conspiratorial beliefs, disengagement from school.

It's like when we feel alone and disconnected, we're on the defensive. And that creates a whole host of problems. And that's why I think it is such a timely topic today, that we're in a crisis of belonging. And I think this work that we've all been doing can speak to this problem.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: So one of the things I really like about your book, that makes it so helpful, is that at every opportunity, you point to research-based solutions. And often those solutions involve something you call situation crafting, which is a term I really like and I've been using a lot since I read your book. But tell us what you mean by that. What is situation crafting? And maybe share some examples that might resonate in a higher education or college context.

Geoffrey Cohen: Situation crafting refers to this idea that rather than trying to change people, we should try to change the situations they're in. And that's basically the idea. It comes out of work in the social sciences, suggesting the power of the situation. What Lee Ross called the power of the situation. More so than we think, our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are affected by right here, right now, what's around us, how a teacher engages with us, the feedback that we're getting, people's nonverbal signals.

There's all these kind of hidden messages in the situations that we're in that can deeply affect us. And we all kind of know that feeling of not belonging in certain kinds of situations where we feel like maybe people don't like me or they're thinking negatively about me. It's interesting, this feeling of being an outsider is something that connects us, unites us. We've all been there.

So situation crafting refers to this sort of art and science of creating situations that promote belonging, and thus bring out people's best in that situation. And there are so many examples of this. I think personally I know that relationships in my life, mentoring relationships have mattered so much to my - being where I am, as I think for everyone. Mentors, role models, the people who care for us are just fundamental elements of our situation.

So relationships are one key. Another idea in situation crafting is that even brief, fleeting encounters or experiences in situations can have a big, big impact. And this idea is basically just capturing the notion that belonging doesn't come from inside of people, it comes from their lived experiences, in situations. And so situations can be changed to make them go better.

And one great example of this is in some research with my colleagues Greg Walton, David Yeager, and others, showing how that transition to college can go a lot more smoothly if people are psychologically prepared for it. And to make a long story short, what we did was to test an intervention, an intervention that changed the situation for incoming freshmen.

Incoming freshmen were basically exposed to information, stories from upperclassmen that conveyed that, hey, the transition to college is hard. And there's going to be many times when you feel lost and not at home. That's normal. You're normal.

And also it'll pass. With time, people start to get a foothold and find their niche. And these stories were designed to convey that if you're feeling like you don't belong, it's not something unique to you and it's not something unique to maybe your race or gender or ethnic background or first generation status.

And what we found and what others have found in several studies is that this little experience, this example of situation crafting, crafting the transition to go more smoothly, has large and lasting benefits, especially from people coming from marginalized groups.

So in that study that I just described, Greg and I found that over time, as a result of that one hour experience, African-American students over their four years of college achieved better grades, closing the achievement gap between them and their white peers by about 50%. Having it as a result of that one experience at a key transition.

Not only that, research by Shannon Brady has found that years later, these students who go through that experience are actually happier in their careers. So that's an example of situation crafting in its power. It's not just changing the situation in any way, it's changing the situation in the right way, giving people just the kind of support they need at the right time and place.

And there's so many others. And I'm so excited about this work because it's just that solutions lie right in front of us. Opportunities are passing us all the time. When we have a little skill and a little wisdom about how to shape situations, we can make a big difference.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: It is so encouraging. I really want to underscore to the audience how many examples there are in your book. Just a lot of them that could be put into place with relatively little investment of time and money, but a lot of thinking critically about how to craft the situation. And you talk in the book about the three key elements which I remember as the three Ts. That's how I always recall them in my own mind. Tailored, targeted, and timely interventions. Could you elaborate on those three Ts?

Geoffrey Cohen: The three Ts, as you said, refer to this idea that it captures lay wisdom, like our wisdom that it's not just the support we get that matters, it's getting the right support at the right time in the right form. And so I think it just captures this wisdom that timing, for example, matters so much.

Let me give you one example of research that put to use the three Ts - at least from my perspective. A really beautiful paper, new paper by Carrell and Kurlaender, two economists. And I'm just going to make a long story short. What they were interested in was increasing retention among struggling students and promoting their achievement in school.

And the first thing they did was just talk to students and ask them, hey, what would be better in your college experience? And a lot of them said, the real problem here is I don't have enough interaction with faculty and I often don't know what to do to improve my outcomes to be more successful. That was it. They kind of found out how, from the students themselves, to improve the situation.

And then they implemented with a group of teachers and a large scale study this little intervention in which they had the faculty, the teachers, send these timely notes to low performing students, students who on that first homework got a low grade or missed the assignment. So it was targeted.

It was also tailored. The emails that the instructor sent gave the students specific guidance on how to improve, what they needed to do, and told them where their office hours were. So there was this kind of connection, but also information, process - about process. How do you go about improving your performance in this class?

And, finally, the messages were timely because they came at the beginning of the year where students could still correct course. The die was not yet cast. And they found these dramatic effects, dramatic effects and really inspirational work showing that the students who received this intervention - especially members of underrepresented groups - did much better in the course. Not only that, they did better in other courses as well.

It had this ripple effect. And this is a sort of example of beautiful, low-cost, tailored, timely, and targeted intervention. And the three Ts captures this notion of leverage, leverage. Where do you go to exert your support, and how? And it captures this idea that when the right support happens to the right person at the right time, a little bit can go a long way.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: There's a great example that you use in your book, which I just want to lift up because we talk a lot about classrooms, but workplaces can be changed in that way. And I'm thinking of the example of the woman who was about to give a speech. Could you share that one?

Geoffrey Cohen: Yeah, that's - thank you for asking. A colleague who was a CEO of - in a large tech company, or was working her way up. She wasn't yet CEO, she was working her way up in a tech company. It was predominantly male, as the tech industry is, but especially so back when she was trying to make it. And she had to give this speech in front of this huge audience. And she was early in her career. And she was completely intimidated as we all get at these so big make or break moments.

And it was a big speech. And right beforehand, right beforehand, her CEO came up to her and said, you are changing this company. And she said to me, the story just says, all of a sudden I felt lifted up, felt lifted up and at ease. And she went into the speech and nailed it. That's an example of the right sort of support at the right time.

Of course, yeah, if she had gotten that support earlier, it might have helped her but it was right at that right time. And I think as parents, we know this. As mentors we know this. It's kind of giving your child the support they need when they need it and that takes a little bit of studying and a lot of attention too. But I think with wisdom, practice, and knowledge of the science, we can get really better at it. And that's one example of a story that captures someone who had that intuitive wisdom.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: That's a great story so thanks for sharing it. At the heart of your book is another fundamental concept in social psychology which, for those who don't remember it from their intro psych class long ago, please explain what is the fundamental attribution error, and how it shapes our interactions with other people so powerfully.

Geoffrey Cohen: I think it's such an important bias. It's a term coined by my mentor and colleague who passed away a couple of years ago, Lee Ross. Fundamental attribution error. The fundamental attribution error refers to our bias to blame situations rather than people. To blame - sorry, it refers to the bias we have to blame people rather than the situations that they're in.

And it's a pervasive bias, especially in Western individuals and cultures where we have this kind of titanic individualism. We think that, really, what drives success is what's inside people, their personality, their ability, their IQ.

And I think this is just part of our culture. And a part of our culture is woven in. We think that the drivers of success and failure reside inside of us, when a lot of times it's the circumstances of our lives that affect us and shape us. And we kind of underappreciate that power. We underappreciate the power of circumstance. And that's what the fundamental attribution error captures.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: So related to that is this quote, I forget who said it but it's in your book. "Above all else, don't fool yourself." When we make the fundamental attribution error, that's what we're doing, we're fooling ourselves. But, of course, it impacts how we react to other people and how we engage with them. How do we fight against our tendency to use this bias, this fundamental attribution error? How do we protect ourselves from falling into that trap?

Geoffrey Cohen: Yeah. Well, let me take it one step back and just say one example of the fundamental attribution error causing mischief is in the genius culture that pervades many academic disciplines. I've seen this, heard this, my father did this. He was a theoretical physicist, where it is believed that what really determines your success is raw talent.

That's a fundamental attribution error that is kind of culturally embedded in many of these disciplines. As research by both Andrei Cimpian and Mary Murphy show, certain disciplines do this more than others. And you know what? The disciplines that do that more than others have larger gender and racial achievement gaps.

So it seems as though one way people keep others out, like marginalized group members, and send negative messages about their belonging is by saying, hey, we here who are already here, have innate talent. And I guess that means you don't. That's what that message sends.

And they have shown - Mary Murphy, for instance, has some beautiful data showing that instructors even in those disciplines who have more of a growth mindset, who really kind convey to students, hey, it's about your effort and strategy. And I believe in your ability to reach your - to achieve in this class, and I'm going to be with you. That those instructors produce better students, at least better performance from the students.

And that even matters more than the racial or gender match of the instructor, between the instructor and the student. It is the kind of philosophy of the teacher that matters. And so that's an example of how breaking free of the fundamental attribution error can help us. Can help us to create environments that are more conducive to the achievement of - especially groups seen as outsiders or stereotyped as outsiders.

So that's one example. How do we unlearn the fundamental attribution error? So a lot of the book is about unlearning. A lot of social psychology is about unlearning these biases, such as stereotypes. One simple solution is to ask people for their points of view, their perspective. I know that sounds simple, but actually we don't do that nearly enough. We don't do that nearly enough.

Lovely research by Nick Epley and his colleagues show that when we are trying to understand other people, we actually try to imagine their perspective more than actually get what he calls get it. We try to just kind of put ourselves in their shoes.

And oftentimes when we do that, we end up committing the fundamental attribution where we say, well, that person is kind of underachieving or doing something objectionable. And if I put - imagine myself in their situation, I wouldn't do that, so it must be something about them.

What Epley suggests is that we perspective get. Ask people questions, listen to the answers. And I know it sounds simple, but it is profoundly important. And we're talking about innovation here. This is like an innovation that stays innovative, asking good questions and listening to the answers.

I think there's so many examples. But to make a long story short, his research, other research shows that we achieve greater empathic accuracy. And we're better at providing people the support they need when we perspective get. We stop committing the fundamental attribution error when we listen and hear the humanity of the other person.

And one example of that is actually the study I mentioned earlier where they first asked students, hey, what would you need? What do you want here to get a better education? And they said, more interaction and learning good strategies. That was perspective getting. And it kind of emerged bottom up from the points of view of the people they were trying to support. So one solution to the FAE, among others, is to perspective get. Ask questions, listen to the answers. Listening is one of the hardest things to do well.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: You're so right about that. And I have to say there's not enough opportunity in higher education for creating strategies to help people learn to be better listeners. That's something I think that we could all work on. And as you know, perhaps from our previous conversations, I'm a big fan of intergroup dialogue as a strategy because one of the things it teaches students is how to be better listeners.

But without getting down that rabbit hole of talking about something that's near and dear to my heart, I want to talk to you a little bit more about stereotyping because you mentioned that as something that happens as a consequence of that fundamental attribution error. And, certainly, the concept of fundamental attribution error and stereotype threat go hand in hand.

I know you had the good fortune of working early in your career with Claude Steele. And he's best known for that concept, stereotype threat. I'm wondering if you could talk about the notion of stereotype threat, and how it relates to belonging.

Geoffrey Cohen: Yeah, I had the good fortune to work with my friend and colleague Claude Steele. And really early he was my graduate school mentor, and still is in a lot of ways. I think that the idea of stereotype threat captures a kind of important wisdom. And that wisdom is the same situation can be experienced very differently by different people.

So the same situation it might feel comfortable to me but it might be very threatening to someone else. That is the idea of stereotype threat. And in Claude, Josh Aronson, and Steve Spencer's work together, seminal work together, they showed that one common ritual of the classroom, the standardized test, is experienced very differently, very differently by people who belong to a stereotyped group and people who don't.

For example, Black students, they showed, when they are taking a very difficult test in a domain that they really care about doing well, a standardized test, if that test is presented as an intelligence test, all of a sudden it becomes very threatening for many, because now I know that if I do poorly, it'll confirm this negative stereotype that's out there hovering about my group.

But if the same test is present as totally unrelated to intelligence, then I'm kind of freed, liberated from that concern. And they show that people's performance rises and falls as a function of whether the stereotype is there in the room with them, hovering and as a psychological reality.

So that just beautifully captures a really - just such an important idea that's really hard to get through our heads, that every situation is many situations. Whatever situation you're in, if there's more than you there, the situation is going to be different, at least some ways. And sometimes often in profound ways. I think we're living through an era where we're experiencing very different societies as a function of our group memberships.

So that's the idea. And then that can contribute to belonging, of course, because - or a lack of belonging because if this situation is threatening, when you feel comfortable, I'm not going to feel like you belong. And you will, and you'll have no empathy for my situation.

So I do feel as though the research on stereotype threat gives us empathy for the idea that our subjective experience isn't the only experience out there. Our point of view isn't the only point of view. And if we neglect that idea, it's really at our peril and other people's peril. And that's why I think that idea is so important.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: So as I'm listening, I'm imagining that there's some people in our audience who might be thinking there's a risk of psychologizing social problems when what we really need is system change, systemic change. How do you look at that issue?

And what does your research say about the larger systems in which individuals are embedded, like schools and workplaces, maybe even the culture? We've talked about the culture of Western individualism. Talk a little bit more about the cultural impact, and how that interfaces with what we are talking about here around belonging.

Geoffrey Cohen: Let me give you one example. In research that I did with Claude Steele, Lee Ross, David Yeager, and others, we looked at what we called wise criticism, which was a way to kind of counteract stereotype threat for members of minority groups.

And what we found is that when white teachers give critical feedback to Black students, there's a risk that that feedback might seem biased because the stereotype is hovering there. Maybe that person is biased by the stereotype.

We found that a simple intervention actually ameliorated that trust gap. And that intervention was to say, for the professor to say upfront, look, I'm giving you this critical feedback because I have high standards and I really truly believe in your ability to reach them. That's where it's coming from.

And that cleared up the attributional ambiguity for Black students in one study, getting the feedback so they knew that they could trust it. It wasn't coming from the stereotype, it's coming from high standards and the professor's belief in my potential.

And in a series of studies we found out that simple message actually increases compliance with the feedback. Work with David Yeager shows that in seventh grade, a year later, the kids are getting in less trouble in school as a result of getting that powerful message at a key moment. And years and years later, more likely to make it in college as a result of that one message from their teacher, I believe in you, and you can do it. And I'm going to ask more of you than maybe what you think you have to give. That's an example of wise criticism.

So the wrong message to take from that is that just giving everyone wise criticism will save the day. That's kind of psychologizing the problem. One message beyond the intervention is to ask the question, well, why don't students get that message already in the control group?

So I was talking with a friend who was saying how she was going to college, she took a course, and she got a bad grade on the initial assignment. The professor didn't really help her. And then she went to talk to her freshman advisor who said, look, you're great. And I believe in you. And you belong here. And my friend conveyed that that made a huge difference just to hear that.

Well, then you start wondering, well, why didn't you hear that before? And so I think these studies reveal not only what happens in the treatment condition but what happens in the control group. That kind of throws the light on the injustices in the system. Then we start thinking about, how are people being robbed every day of these powerful psychological messages that so many others are getting, this message, you can do it. I believe in you.

And then you start to think about the systemic ways in which racism and sexism and other isms create a kind of, a reality for people day to day in which they - it's not a loving, level playing field. Not a loving playing field, not a level one either. And so I think that's how these studies highlight systemic change. It's like a practice, wise criticism. The principle is, you should believe in people.

And then the cultural critique is, why isn't that message getting out to people anyway? There must be some systemic change that if we accomplished - I think these studies really kind of captivate the imagination this way, what could happen if these kinds of messages were just woven into students' culture rather than just part of a little intervention study that social psychologists do? And that really captures the imagination there, I think.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: Yeah. You know, I'm going to come back to the title of your book for a moment, which is The Science of Creating Connection, which we've been talking a lot about, and Bridging Divides. So we are living in a particularly polarized time. Political polarization is rampant. And a lot of people feel a sense of despair as to whether we can ever get beyond that political polarization.

But your book does offer some hopefulness about that. And in some ways you alluded to the power of perspective getting versus perspective taking. But I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how we might cross the political divides we're having today with some of the wisdom that's been gained from the research you cite.

Geoffrey Cohen: What I really love about social psychology is it offers solutions, practical solutions. I mean, I'm hopeful. I mean, you have to kind of be an optimist, you have to be hopeful to make any progress, I think. But as we - hope is not a strategy. But social psychology offers strategies. The strategies being, one, in this case is to have good conversations across political lines. And I know that sounds simple, but it's actually very difficult to have a good conversation. What goes into a good conversation?

Broockman, David Broockman and Josh Kalla have done some amazing work on engineering constructive conversations across political lines. And I'm just going to simplify their research for the purposes of this conversation.

But what they do is they go door to door, a canvasser talks to a conservative voter in one of the most conservative districts in Florida, Miami Dade. And they have a conversation for 10 minutes about transgender rights.

What they find is that six months after that, after that conversation, compared to a control group, these conservative voters are much more supportive of transgender rights and, actually, more likely to take a stand against hate propaganda against transgender people. Those conversations transformed the voters in a really enduring way.

And I study political psychology, and I know that really nothing else works to create enduring change. They have the goods on how to create enduring change across the political chasm. And it's through these conversations. What do these conversations have? Many elements. They have self affirmation. The canvasser listens to the voters and asks them questions. So I care about you.

I think one of the prompts for the canvassers is when you go to door to door, just understand that every person has within them something of value. And so they kind of approach the conversation with that in mind. And they have perspective getting. They share stories of transgender people and emotional empathy.

So one of the questions the canvasser asks is, have you - the voter - have you ever been treated unfairly because of something about you that you can't change? And the voters often generate analogous stories. Like one mentioned how he had PTSD coming back from the Iraq war and couldn't get a job because of his medical condition, psychological condition.

And that kind of helped him to understand, oh, the pain of being a transgender person and being systemically excluded, now I kind of get it. And through these conversations, they produce the equivalent of 10 years change in support of gay rights in America in 10 minutes. And that's an amazing thing. That's an amazing thing.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: I think we could all - as your research suggests and what - the kind of work you're doing - benefit from having these constructive dialogues. I think that that's one really key solution. One conversation at a time we can change things.

One of the things - we're getting ready now to transition to some of the Q&A. For those of you who have been listening and want in on this conversation, we are going to shift now to asking some questions from the viewers, so to speak.

And I'm looking at one right now that I think is really important because it speaks to that timeliness mentioned that we talked about earlier, the three Ts. This particular question says, is belonging a new chance we have each time we join a new school year, work team, community group, et cetera? Or do belonging deficits develop that plague or follow people throughout their academic careers or community lives?

I know there's some examples in your book about how shifting or crafting a situation can change how someone belongs from one school year to the next, or from one work team to the next. Maybe you could speak to that.

Geoffrey Cohen: I think there's good news, bad news. The bad news is that consequences accumulate, so small differences in experience early on in a person's transition can really add up to devastating costs. In some work that Yeager, David Yeager and I and others have done on the transition to middle school, what we find is that, for example, minority students and white students enter school with the same level of trust in their teachers, this is middle school, sixth grade.

But over three years an enormous gap in their trust of teachers emerges, such that by the time they leave middle school, minority students have much less trust in the school system than their white peers. That's an example of the kind of accumulation of consequences. Things add up. And I think that's a really profound way to look at change through time, is that these little things, when they compound, can have a big effect.

So, likewise, I think that on the good news side, what this means is that we have a point of leverage. And that point of leverage is at the beginning, the beginning before the consequences accumulate. At the beginning of middle school - that's when we gave people that wise criticism note - you can have a large effect.

So I think timing these acts of support to key transitions and choice points, as in that sort of CEO example, performance trials, can give us some leverage. However, I would add it's never too late. We're always going through transitions. I kind of believe this, every moment is a new beginning. And if you just look at it this way, you can kind of reawaken to possibility.

And I think you can - people have reversed the damage of the costs of exclusion. Christian Picciolini, who studies - works with extremists, members of certain neo-Nazi groups, trying to bring them back - he was a neo-Nazi himself but he's trying to bring people back. He says, people can come back.

If they are looked at with dignity and believed in, they can. You can repair the damage of years of hate and exclusion. I don't want to be Pollyanna-ish. I'm not saying it's easy, but it can be done. And it's not about doing anything, it's about doing the right thing at the right time. And sometimes we can create those moments.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: One of the people in the Q&A here is mentioning that your book is being used as a summer book club selection, which seems like a great idea, for people to be reading the book together. And I know from talking with you that there are an infinite number of resources, in addition to the book, that you've made available on your website for people who are reading and discussing the text. I'm wondering if you might want to just reference how people can get more information.

Besides reading the book - which I just really want to underscore - there's a lot of information, very specific information in the book. So if you're wondering, like, can we get more specific? I'm going to say, read the book. But besides that, where can people get more information?

Geoffrey Cohen: Well, my colleague Greg Walton has a wonderful website where he kind of lays out a whole list of interventions and ways to do them. And I think that's enormously helpful. Greg Walton at Stanford, he's done some amazing work and lays out a kind of very helpful set of resources for people to use. I think that's one.

Another is at Princeton University. My colleague Elizabeth Paluck has a large bank of resources for promoting inclusion in middle schools and high schools. And she has her own curriculum that incorporates a lot of these social psychological techniques to create communities of inclusion in these kind of hostile school settings. And that's very useful. It's called the Roots curriculum. And she's made that available at Princeton University.

And then Corinne Moss-Racusin - I may be saying her name wrong - has a lot of resources showing, on debiasing, like helping to make people aware of sexism, for example, and the science behind it. And she has some really great videos for educating people.

And these should be used much more in diversity training. So those are just three examples. There's more. Anyone could reach out to me. I'm happy to support these efforts and to be a good curator of the work that so many of, so many people have done.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: Great. There is a question that I think is really interesting, and particularly in this moment of social media. And this question is, what sort of constructive conversations can be had on social media? How do we use situation crafting on Twitter or Facebook or other Instagram? A lot of places where there can be very toxic conversations going on. Any thoughts about that?

Geoffrey Cohen: Yeah, yeah. One great study - I think his name was Munger, Kevin Munger, I believe. I might be getting that wrong. But he did a study looking at the kinds of messages you can send over social media - this was on Twitter - to reduce racism. And I'll just simplify the study. He identified people who had racist behavior on Twitter, sending, like, hostile notes to members of minority groups using really just awful, awful terms and expletives.

And what he did was to compare various messages that might deter that kind of behavior among those users in the future. And one message really worked well. One message really worked well. This was a message from a fellow white Twitter user who just sent the message, hey, man, just remember that people hurt when you use language like that. And that was all.

It didn't wipe out the problem but it enduringly reduced racist verbiage from these users. And so that's a nice example of the power of holding on to that belief in the dignity of other people even when it's very hard to do, even when it's very hard to do. I think that's what it boils down to.

And the change that can happen, that that can produce, it's not going to happen every time, but this is our best path forward. And I think that study kind of gives us a little bit of optimism on how we can do this in crafty ways over social media. I should add that that note was, in particular, effective for white users with a lot of followers. So there had to be, kind of, social currency to the message as well.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: Yeah, so one of the things you talk about in the book about relative to belonging - and there's a question that speaks to this - has to do with how easily we can revert to kind of a sense of tribalism. I belong to this group, that insider outsider kind of group dynamic. And so one question that's in our selection here is, love to hear perspectives on how you can avoid potential tribalism from creeping in as you seek to promote belonging.

Geoffrey Cohen: I don't think - I mean, to some degree we do have a penchant to divide - carve up the world into an us and a them. And the them may be threatening. And so one of the key questions we're asking ourselves, that we've evolved to ask ourselves is, is this person friend or foe? And so that makes us really sensitive to this line of difference. But they are socially constructed lines in our modern world.

And the degree to which they matter depends on the situations that are created for us or that we create. What the research shows is that situations of threat are the ones that create that us-them dynamic, situations of threat. And oftentimes that's the perception of scarce resources. Like there's not enough resources to go around here, and I got to care about my own. That's one way.

It could also just be simply, I'm not having a good day here and I feel really insecure. That leads people to kind of carve up the world into us-them. Some beautiful research by Steve Spencer and Steve Fein finds that when people get threatening negative feedback on an intellectual exam, they commit more anti-Semitism. They're more anti-Semitic towards other people, as if putting down another group makes me feel better about myself.

So how do you overcome this us-them dichotomizing? I'll give two answers. One is by creating these self-affirming environments. That research by Fein and Spencer I just described shows that if you give people alternative sources of self-affirmation - here's how I have a sense of purpose, here is how I have value - they're less likely to engage in negative stereotyping of outgroups.

Even, they're less likely to gossip negatively about others, some researchers suggest this. I only gossip when I'm feeling bad, threatened, or I gossip more when I'm feeling bad and threatened. So creating these less toxic, more welcoming work environments and school environments is one way to go, where people feel self-secure.

The second way comes out of this old but classic, and I really do think enduring research that we should return to by Muzafer Sherif, Gordon Allport, and many others showing this - the power of cooperating in pursuit of superordinate goals.

And he and others have done amazing work. I'm going to call out research on the jigsaw classroom, it's just one example. Elliot Aaronson in post desegregation Texas was trying to create schools that brought Blacks and whites together in public school settings. And what he did to do that, even though the relations were pretty hostile, he actually did that successfully by having the two groups cooperate together in pursuit of a superordinate goal.

And to make a long story short, what he did was to carve out lesson plans into little pieces. And then have Black students and white piece - white students, learn those little pieces. And then they came together with the common purpose of learning the whole lesson plan together.

What this brilliantly does is it makes it in students' own self-interest to cooperate across lines of difference. And this jigsaw - it's called the jigsaw classroom - has very powerful effects on minority students' self-esteem, performance. But also more importantly, reduces whites' prejudice, at least increases their likelihood of forming cross-race friendships. Superordinate goals. It takes leadership to do this.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: Yes.

Geoffrey Cohen: Right, these goals that people marshaled their energies to work on together. And I think we sorely lack those kinds of leaders today who can kind of rally us together.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: I think leadership is really critical here. And for lots of reasons, as you said, we are inclined to demonstrate this kind of us-them thinking. But then as I like to say, the leader helps define who the us and who the them is. And if you divide - if you - if in your leadership style you define the us very narrowly, then it's more toxic than if in your leadership style you make clear that there's a lot of us in the us, right?

Geoffrey Cohen: You've done that brilliantly, I know. It's in your role as president. I'm getting more, kind of, larger themes to bring people together who might see each other as different.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: There's a question that kind of touches on that here. And it says, how do your findings on belonging and bridging intersect with power sharing as a practice to advance equity in our society? For example, who gets to decide to shift the conditions? Who gets to decide to situation craft? Can you situation craft up? We talk about managing up.

This is not the question but I'm thinking about that. If you're not in a leadership - an official leadership role, can you help shape the situation so that circumstances are changing for everyone, even if you're not the official leader?

Geoffrey Cohen: That's a great question. I mean, I do think that every day we have these little interactions that make - that add up. I mean, I think one of the lessons of social psychology is that even a small encounter can make a big difference.

And if we're rude, for example, to someone, as we know, that can kind of have lingering effects. There's this amazing research on rudeness. That just one rude comment led physicians to perform worse in a medical diagnostic task. It just kind of puts people in this defensive, threatened mode. And it just takes one rude comment to do that.

So that on the one hand is bad news, but on the other hand, that says that we all have a certain power. In every situation we're in with someone else, we are part of that person's situation. We are a part of that person's situation and so thus we share the power of the situation. We share the power of the situation. And so we can use that power in really constructive ways.

And first and foremost, that's being polite, actually, being polite. Having that attitude of gratitude towards other and a kind of genuine curiosity about them, I think that really goes a long way. That goes a long way. And research by Jennifer Eberhardt and many others has shown how when interacting across lines of difference, we're a lot less polite.

And so having that in mind, though - and I think that that's so important. I mean, I kind of harp on politeness only because it is kind of a universal thing. Every culture has a protocol of politeness. Why? Because it's one of the key rituals we have in social life. It's a way of honoring the dignity of another person. And I think I would say that that's one way of working up. Being a model for the kind of decency that you want to create.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: So you have in your book, toward the end of the book you have a section called Key Takeaways. And I want to read what I think is a very hopeful sentence, but it speaks to something that you were just talking about. It says, "While the research on belonging uncertainty shows how easily belonging can be undermined, the science of situation crafting shows how empowered we all are to combat that uncertainty in ourselves and in others."

I know we don't have very much time left. In the time that's remaining, I'm wondering, what are two or three things that you would stress that each of us can do in our day to day interactions, to help? Being polite would be in that category, I'm sure.

And by polite I don't mean not challenging. Being polite and challenging, like those deep canvassers in the Broockman and Kalla study. Yeah. So how can we effectively translate your research into building community in the classroom or in the workplace?

Geoffrey Cohen: I would give three answers. One is perspective again. Have some systematic way to assess the perspectives of the people that you want to support. And that example that I gave earlier by the two economists is just one example. You get a lot of understanding by talking to people. And I look at social science research as a form of listening.

The kind of research that Greg Walton and I did together and Claude Steele and I did together is you're listening to the psychology of another human being. And research is a form of that, it's a form of listening, but there's many, many others. It's a perspective get. And that's one way to climb out of these biases that can lead us to see a fiction in front of us rather than the flesh and bones of another human being.

The other is to visit and revisit your core values. Visit and revisit your core values. I feel as though in society today, it's easy to get caught up in material things and status and jockeying. We don't spend enough time thinking about what our most cherished values are, what would I stand for? What do I believe in? What would I maybe even die for?

And I think visiting and revisiting our core values is a second thing that I would say is really important. This goes into the work on values affirmations by Claude Steele and many others, showing that brief moments of reflecting on your core values can reduce defensiveness, improve performance, lessen stress, and have these ripple effects downstream, including reducing stereotyping.

So reconnect with what makes you you, your core values. And research suggests that that's a very important thing to do, by the way, in adolescence. Adolescents don't get asked that question enough at this key moment of development where they're forming their sense of self. You can do a lot of good by taking an interest in the values of adolescence and asking them questions about, what defines you? What do you stand for? What kind of idea are you?

And then the third would be, fight the fundamental attribution error. Fight the fundamental attribution error. Kurt Lewin, the founder of modern social psychology, he was working during another vexing time, during World War II. And he just saw the disruption around him. And he had the saying that stuck with me. "There's nothing as practical as a good theory."

Beverly Daniel Tatum: I love that quote, yes.

Geoffrey Cohen: And we pooh-pooh theory but I think we're using theory all the time. We just don't know it. Fundamental attribution, yeah, that's a theory. It's like you behave badly, you must have bad character. You perform poorly, you must have low ability. That's a theory. And the theory that we embrace now in our culture is a theory that says when people behave, it's because of some inner essence that drives them.

I mean, of course, it's not as extreme, but that's generally our theory. So fighting the fundamental attribution error, getting people's perspectives, learning about social psychology will help people become wiser and more sophisticated and more situationally literate so that they understand that when something objectionable, my friend or a student, disappoints me, I have a more sophisticated outlook.

And I can be more likely to provide the kind of support that will actually put them back on track. I had this experience once - just to give a brief experience - I had a graduate student once who was really not doing too well. He was falling behind, and I found myself committing the fundamental attribution error with him. And I was like, you've got to get the - you got to get your nose to the grindstone here.

And I realized I was using a theory. I was thinking that this was all about him. And I just realized that I can't trust my own - and I thought to myself, like you said earlier, don't believe everything you think. I'm thinking this but maybe I shouldn't believe it.

And then I thought, wait a minute. What about the situation? What's his situation? So I inquired with him, I asked him about his situation. And it turned out that he had a brother who got shot in a bar in Montana, from where he was from. His family was living in dire straits. He was sending a lot of money back home to support his family. He was the first student in his family not only to make it to graduate school but actually to graduate high school.

So I appreciated his circumstance better. And then I brought that to the other faculty. And we all kind of dreamed up together ways in which we could support this student financially and change a situation for the better. And now he's a successful professor in his own right.

And I do think that that came out of fighting this psychological reflex, becoming more reflective rather than reflexive in my thinking. Questioning my judgment. And becoming a bit more constructive and curious and empathic.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: That's a great example. And one of the things that you talk a lot about are these studies that show strategies that work. And one of the questions that is in the chat or in the Q&A has to do with replicability problems. There are lots of studies that show - and sometimes it feels like the studies are being challenged because they seem too good to be true.

Like, how could it be that a small values affirmation exercise could change somebody's performance so positively, and yet these studies have been replicated a lot. But could you talk about this question of replicability and these interventions and how we might address that?

Geoffrey Cohen: Yeah. These interventions are replicable, but they occur under the conditions of the three Ts that we talked about. And so when you look at the variety of interventions and the number of studies have been done, their effects are powerful but conditional. Affirmation, for example, just one, produces better student performance and closes achievement gaps in situations where there are resources for students to actually do better.

And those could be financial resources, human resources, teachers who are invested in the student's growth, who have a strong growth mindset. It also occurs in - the benefits occur when the intervention is given at this key transition, timely moment.

And so when those conditions are met, these interventions tend to have very strong effects. And one meta analysis of affirmation showed just this. One large scale study of growth mindset interventions by David Yeager and Carol Dweck and others showed just this. Effects are powerful but conditional. And that makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, social life is kind of complicated. You can't do one thing all the time. I mean, that kind of doesn't really work.

And I think that the question of replicability is really about - should really - or question should really be about what - not so much what works, but what works under what circumstances. And everything is conditional in social life.

And I do think that what this research suggests is it's not so much the power of the intervention, it's the power of what's already there, that kind of suppressed potential of the student. And when that's there and the suppressed potential in the environment, and when that's there it's like popping the cork on a champagne bottle. Like, just kind of - what's kind of been held down can suddenly express itself. But the potential, the potential in the situation and the student need to be there.

Beverly Daniel Tatum: I wish we had more time, Geoff. It's so helpful to hear you speak. And I just want to underscore the importance of reading your book because so much of what you're telling is elaborated in that resource. With that, I'm going to turn it back to Matthew. But I want to say thank you so much for sharing your time and your wisdom with us today.

Geoffrey Cohen: Thank you. Thank you so much, Beverly. It's really just always delightful to be in conversation with you. Thank you.

The Academic Innovation for the Public Good book series is co-organized by Stanford Digital Education and Trinity College. Visit Academic Innovation for the Public Good to learn about upcoming events and to view our program partners and co-sponsors.

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Geoffrey Cohen on Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides

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Recording and transcript of Stanford psychologist Geoffrey Cohen's conversation on belonging with Beverly Daniel Tatum, April 12, 2023.

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“Students often feel pressure to suppress parts of themselves in order to fit in with dominant social norms” (De Witte, par. 5).

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Two Keys to Helping College Students Feel Like They Belong

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For students to have a sense of belonging and succeed in school, they need the right mindset and a supportive environment.

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“In its Spring 2024 assessment of more than 100,000 college students, the American College Health Association found that nearly half reported moderate to high levels of loneliness” (Bono, par. 2).

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Sense of Belonging in College: Hard to Find, Hard to Measure

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For universities to help their students find a sense of belonging, we first need to get serious about how we define and measure it.

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“What we’re doing here is offering students the idea that it’s normal to worry at first about whether you belong, and it can get better with time” (De Witte, par. 11).

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Two Keys to Helping College Students Feel Like They Belong

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For students to have a sense of belonging and succeed in school, they need the right mindset and a supportive environment.

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“The widespread adoption of virtual instruction since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has created new barriers to connecting and increased students’ screen time, which is associated with depression, anxiety, and stress” (Romeo, par. 2).

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The importance of belonging for well-being in college students

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College students are vulnerable to mental health challenges that include depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. We examined how subjective well-being in 369 college students in the United States was affected by the number friends or family members who could provide essential needs (instrumental support) or with whom intimate or personal matters could be discussed (emotional support), the frequency of engaging with others, satisfaction with these engagements, and the sense of belonging. Engagement satisfaction was affected by emotional support and engagement frequency. Instrumental support had no significant effect, but this could be an artifact of our sample. Emotional support affected belonging, which in turn affected well-being. These results highlight the central role of belonging in establishing and maintaining well-being. Some characteristics may act as well-being risk or protective factors, but these effects are small; all students may experience low levels of well-being. We recommend that institutions monitor the well-being of their students and require participation in curricular and co-curricular activities that are intentionally designed to promote belonging and well-being.

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Both show how identity suppression harms belonging

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All show how loneliness and mental health relate to belonging.

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“I found a comfort zone by exploring my interests and taking the leap into an active life on campus. But this took time and before I found my niche here there were times when I felt quite lonely” (De Witte, par. 10).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Two Keys to Helping College Students Feel Like They Belong

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For students to have a sense of belonging and succeed in school, they need the right mindset and a supportive environment.

# data[].attributes.body
“Creating inclusive spaces requires more than orientation events—it involves ongoing, structural commitment to equity and engagement” (Bono, Psychology Today).

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Show that both structure and time are needed for students to truly feel included.