GLSEN Respect Award--Rich Espey HC'87

This article reminds me a lot of a psych talk I went to a few weeks ago, from one of the candidates for the new tenure track position in the Haverford Psychology Department.  The speaker, Jonathan Cook from Colombia, has been doing research on gaps based on socially important demographics (i.e. the achievement gap between White and minority students, health disparities between heterosexual and sexual minority students).  His research has shown that identity threat, the challenge to the self caused by negative associations with some aspect of their identity, was a very important predictive factor in positive outcomes.  Identity threat goes beyond stereotyping.  A person’s group memberships are fundamentally incorporated into their sense of self, so threats to the group also fundamentally threaten the self.  Cook found that identity threat independent predicted some of the variance in health and achievement outcomes, even when stereotyping and SES were controlled.  What I found most interesting about his research is that when the research team designed and implemented an intervention to guard against stereotype threat, it predicted a significant increase in minority student achievement, up to two years later.  The amazing thing is, the intervention merely asked students to identify and explain why their most important personal trait was important to them (for example, “Having a supportive family is important to me because it reminds me that I am valuable.”)  Merely getting students to think about themselves and their identity in a positive light was enough to improve their academic performance for 2 years.  Cook proposed that this self-validation counteracted identity threat, and was robust because it altered the way students looked at situations.  For example, after receiving criticism from a teacher, a student under stereotype threat might be more suspicious, thinking “She’s racist, she only criticizes Black students,” disregarding the comments.  A student whose identity has been bolstered would be more likely to accept such criticism and improve, without the threat of a negative identity darkly coloring their worldview.  Though he will need to do more research to support this hypothesis, Cooke proposed that the reason the manipulation was so powerful is that it fundamentally viewed the way students interpreted the world around them.

So why am I bringing this up?  It seems to me that the reason that the mere presence of a GSA on campus is so beneficial to sexual minority students, is it’s protection against identity threat.  In an atmosphere of homophobia, it would be validating and beneficial just to know that there are positive allies around you who look upon your identity favorably.  Of course there’s no way to know this without doing research, but since the study mentioned in the Huffington post article found the improved outcomes even for students who were not involved in the GSA, this is my hypothesis.  Maybe the power of allies goes above and beyond even what Judith Butler said… perhaps allies not just an important part of the fight for social justice, but are an important part of the solution themselves.  This article seems very important to our discussion of activism, so I thank you for posting it.  The horrible acts by fellow students and administrators mentioned in the article speak to the importance of research on this topic; it shows the bigoted that their hatred has significant, measureable negative consequences.  As much as we like to criticize science’s “voice from nowhere,” I feel like this discursive strategy can be harnessed for good as well as evil.  Research and testimony by psychologists and other “mental health experts” can be very powerful, particularly when it comes to litigation.  If I remember correctly, psychologists’ testimony was important to proving that separate education poses a threat to healthy development in the Brown v. Board case. In the context of our discussions on activism, as hypocritical as it may seem, the “voice from nowhere” power of scientific research is a powerful weapon to have our arsenal.