About Our Guest:
Geoffrey L. Cohen is a Professor of Psychology and the James G. March Professor of Organizational Studies in Education and Business at Stanford University. He is a social psychologist by training and received his PHD at Stanford and his BA at Cornell.
Professor Cohen’s research examines the processes that shape people’s sense of belonging and self-concept, and the role that these processes play in various social problems.
Book: BELONGING: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides, by Geoffrey L. Cohen
Website: geoffreylcohen.com
Twitter: @GeoffCohen
Instagram: @geoffrey.cohen.77
About Lainie:
Lainie Rowell is an educator, international consultant, podcaster, and TEDx speaker. She is the lead author of Evolving Learner and a contributing author of Because of a Teacher. Her latest book, Evolving with Gratitude, was just released. An experienced teacher and district leader, her expertise includes learner-driven design, community building, online/blended learning, and professional learning. Learn more at linktr.ee/lainierowell.
Twitter - @LainieRowell
Instagram - @LainieRowell
Evolving with Gratitude, the book, is now available! Purchase here!
You can also get bulk orders for your staff (10 copies or more) at a discounted price! Just fill out the form linked below and someone will get back to you ASAP! bit.ly/ewgbulkdiscount
Transcript:
Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Hello, friends. I have a real treat for you. So much so that I had been taking notes and if you listen to this podcast often, you know, I'm not a note prepper or anything like that. This is a conversational podcast, but I do have someone, this was like a big swing for me. I usually invite people I know because I feel like.
They'll be more likely to say yes, but this is a big swing. I have with me today. Dr. Geoffrey Cohen, and he's given me permission to call him Geoff, so I'm gonna do that.
Is that still okay, Geoff?
Geoff Cohen: That is perfectly, perfectly cool by me.
Lainie Rowell: Okay, thank you. We had a chance to meet in person in New York City about a month ago now at the Learning and the Brain Conference. You were the keynote, but I was a speaker, so I thought, well, maybe if he sees that I'm a speaker here, he'll be more likely to say yes. I don't know if that played into it at all, but all that to say, Geoff, I'm very happy to have you here.
Geoff Cohen: Oh, it's a delight to be here. Thank you for introducing me.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah. I'm gonna give you more of a proper introduction and then I'd love for you to tell people more about you.
This is going to be an abbreviated bio because there is a lot to share. P rofessor at Stanford and Geoff is a social psychologist by training, has a PhD from Stanford and BA at Cornell. So very impressive. Already we're in.
And then, Professor Cohen's research examines the processes that shape people's sense of belonging and self-concept and the role that these processes play in various social problems.
Now, I want to point out that he's the author of an incredible book, Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides. Now, I had seen this pop up a bunch of times, but I'm gonna tell you, Geoff, here's what, put me over the top. Add it to the Amazon cart. Purchase now was Greater Goods Editors pick this as one of the most thought-provoking, practical, and inspiring science books of 2022.
And I love my friends at Greater Good Science Center. So that was a huge endorsement I'm in.
Geoff Cohen: Hmm. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Well, as you said, I'm a social psychologist by training. That means I study people in situations. I'm, I'm very interested in how situations affect people's psychology. I'm not a clinical psychologist. Clinical psychologists and personality psychologists tend to focus on kind of the inner dynamics of people.
What I am interested in as a social psychologist is how the everyday situations of our lives shape us in sometimes surprising ways. So that is kind of key to my identity. Also key to my identity, I grew up in New Jersey, so I'm, I'm an east coaster and culturally an east coaster. Born and raised in central Jersey.
And I guess I, I do feel a, a little bit like an outsider living in California, displaced from my East Coast roots. So there is a kind of personal side to the, to the focus on belonging as well.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah. Well, I'm looking at your background, which is stunning by the way, are you in Northern California right now?
Geoff Cohen: Well, I took the opportunity to move to New York City. I'm on sabbatical, so New York City is my favorite place on earth and I've never lived in a city, so I took the opportunity to just move here for a few months and, and experience the city. And I just love New York City. And the diversity and the energy of it.
So currently I'm living in New York City, at least for the next few months.
Lainie Rowell: Well, I have to say I asked because I was like, how did you seek out and find an exposed brick living situation in Northern California? That's not terribly common. So...
Geoff Cohen: That's right. You see it on the video. You can see this lovely exposed brick.
This is a true New York apartment, studio apartment that I just kind of lucked into way below market value. A friend of a friend had gotten engaged and she still wanted to hold onto her apartment, so I'm just subletting it from this friend of mine. And it really worked out. It just kind of luckily and I think she's has a bit of an artistic bent, but this is sort of classic New York style studio living.
Lainie Rowell: This is an audio podcast, so I just had to share that with our listeners because they don't get to see it. So I feel a little spoiled right now.
I'm looking at this beautiful background. All right, so I do wanna get into your book that I am so fascinated. You know, I already shared five star review on Amazon. That's one of my love languages is I like to give five star reviews to books that I think are important and add value. And so exceptional, insightful, please go check it out if you, if you haven't already purchased this book.
So Geoff, I'm gonna ask you to do me a favor and start with a, what I would say is a simple, but maybe not an easy question, and just what does gratitude mean to you?
Geoff Cohen: Oh, that's such a great question. I've never been asked that question, but off the cuff I would say a lot of it's being seen. You feel seen by the other person and appreciated. And I think in a lot of ways we kind of go through our lives not feeling fully seen. And as a social psychologist I've always studied how these wonderful qualities and abilities people have often don't come to the surface in situations. They're kind of somehow suppressed by the situation. And so I think gratitude means that you're being seen and recognized for the beauty of who you are and feeling that way. Feeling appreciated is, is I think at, at the core of gratitude.
What do you think, though? You're the expert here on this.
Lainie Rowell: Well, I don't know about expert. I lean to the experts like Dr. Robert Emmons and the social scientist, but I like how you're pointing out the feeling seen as in people are grateful for me.
They see this in me. And then I have so many questions to ask you, oh my gosh, this is gonna be hard to keep this podcast short. So I'm gonna limit my answer. But, I definitely think that's a beautiful part of it. And then also, hopefully we see it in ourselves too, I would say.
And I, I think that might be something that comes up in your work.
Geoff Cohen: Lovely. I love that. Yeah. Being grateful for yourself.
Lainie Rowell: I hope that's the, that's maybe that's the, the ultimate goal, right?
Geoff Cohen: Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, yeah. That's, that's really well put. And it may not be very different after all, whether you're appreciated by yourself or by others.
It's kind of all kind of, of a piece, I think.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah, and I think maybe one thing to overcome in both situations is negativity bias. That's something that happens to come up a lot when I'm talking to people about Gratitude is, you know, we see all the, the not great things exponentially more than we see the great things.
So if we can try and train our brains to see all the good in others and ourselves, I think that leads to a lot more pleasant existence.
Geoff Cohen: I, I agree. I have a good friend of mine who said that, you know, I think he said that there's two enemies to happiness. He was just simplifying. He was a fellow graduate student and one is the negativity bias.
We're just kind of wired to see the negative and we've kind of evolved that way in, for instance, research on loss aversion, the, the potential for a loss losing something looms much larger and feels to us as if it would be much more powerful than the pleasure we, we get from a gain of equivalent magnitude.
And that's just one example of many that we're kinda constantly going through life feeling and fearing the potential for loss and that that can kind of get in the way of seeing the wonder and beauty in others and in our environment and in ourselves and in our experience.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah. So it's effort, but it's worth the effort, right?
Geoff Cohen: Yeah. It's worth, yeah. And it's work. It is work, yeah. You know, meditation helps research and social psychology helps these strategies ranging from self-affirmation or practicing random acts of kindness. Sarah Allgeier's work on just kind of making time to express gratitude for others. Making it kind of intentional, making your, your life intentional around these goals.
It can be really helpful.
Lainie Rowell: Those were some great examples of how gratitude can be practiced in our lives. And I wanna get to talking about your book because I'm fangirling, I'm gonna nerd out as much as I can. I wanna first ask you a somewhat general question and just, what do you see as the connection between gratitude and belonging.
Geoff Cohen: That's an interesting question.
Let's play with that a little bit. Well, I think belonging is in part a sense that we get and a reality that we experience in which we are fully accepted for who we are and we're part of a larger whole part of a larger group, but we're still ourselves and we feel like ourself has a sort of vital role to play in the group.
And we care about the group, and the group cares about us. It's kind of like being at home or being in a good family, that sense of belonging. So I think gratitude fits into that because I will feel like I belong if I feel like other people in my group are grateful for my presence and grateful for what I have to offer.
And that may be kind of a key element of that feeling of belonging. I do a lot of research in educational context, when a teacher says to a student, I really appreciate your presence in this classroom and what you had to offer today, the student feels seen.
The teacher's expressing some gratitude that the student feels seen and is likely to feel a much stronger sense of belonging, at least in that moment. So I would say that that Gratitude is about mattering to someone else, being seen for who we are. And belonging is all about feeling accepted for who we are.
Lainie Rowell: I hear you teasing out the fully accepted and like we belong in this group, but also we play a vital role. So it's appreciating the commonality, but also the uniqueness, if I'm getting that right.
Geoff Cohen: Yeah. Yes. Yeah, and that's such a good point. It's not just, I think about being accepted, it's about having a vital role, as you say.
It's about having something to contribute. I matter to the group. Without me, the group isn't fully itself. I think that this sort of dovetails into the scientific research on purpose and eudemonic wellbeing that shows that one of the best things for us as human beings is to have a sense of purpose that's larger than ourselves. Something, a social project or other people that, that we're committed to. Could be a charity, volunteer organization, could be our family, could be our kids, could be anything but something bigger than ourselves to which we are committed, and that turns out to be a huge predictor of a better and more healthy life.
Having that sense of purpose, it's like if you could put purpose, that sense of purpose in a bottle, it'd be a billion dollar drug. Because having it, you know the reasons are pretty compelling down to the level of our genes is actually really a healthful, healthful thing to have a sense of purpose down to our level of genes.
I'm thinking of research by Barb Frederickson and Steve Cole showing that among people who have a sense of purpose that's either measured or manipulated, the genes responsible for bodily inflammation are less likely to be active. So even down to that level. So I think what you're saying is that belonging, is in part, mattering to the group, not just feeling accepted to it.
And, and I'm kind of adding to that, this idea that, yeah, purpose is part of this. Having a sense of purpose to the larger whole.
Lainie Rowell: I love that word mattering and I a hundred percent agree about purpose. And I appreciate you bringing up the physiological benefits, right? So often we think about how do we do these things that help us feel happier. We tend to think about the mental health benefits, but there's actually physical health benefits. Yeah. Which I think is kind of remarkable that that's how connected it all is.
Geoff Cohen: It really does seem to be the case.
The researchers that I know who've done this, some of whom are friends of mine, say they didn't really go into it thinking that the mind would have such a powerful effect on the body. That a sense of purpose, for instance would matter down to your genome. Mm-hmm. But they, that this is what they found.
And it's been pretty well replicated. It seems as though as a human species, we are let's say wired to be part of a larger whole. We're wired to connect with others and to work together with others for common purpose. Almost all purposes that that matter are social purposes and we've evolved to have that, and there's many stories you could tell as to why. One is, as Matt Lieberman, a neuroscientist argues and Naomi Eisenberg argue is that as human beings out in the wild are very vulnerable to predation and physical injury. We don't really do well on our own. We really need other people to survive and to thrive.
And so evolutionarily our physiology and our central nervous system have probably adapted to the importance of connection and working together. And that's probably why it's, it's very beneficial physiologically and in terms of our health to have those connections. But it's also very, very devastating when we don't for prolonged periods of time.
And that's one of the sad things about the era we're in, is that so many people are just chronically lonely. And the people who are most at risk these days, which, you know, being a parent myself I'm very concerned with is loneliness. Young adults the amount, the degree of loneliness is, is rising.
And even teens today, they spend less time with friends in person. And so there's devastating effects to not having that sense of connection. That, on the flip side is, is the bad news part of this?
Lainie Rowell: Well, let's talk about some of the good news, not to push away the bad. We have to acknowledge the bad.
Because your work does say, well, here's some things we can do. And there's so much greatness in your book, we can focus more on K-12 cuz the majority of our listeners, save my mom, are probably gonna be K-12 educators.
So, I wonder if you could share some of how we can, as educators really cultivate a sense of belonging for all of our students.
Geoff Cohen: Yeah. Well, to back up just a little bit I would say that the research of the 21st century has really shown the importance of belonging from cradle to the grave.
And in an educational context that means for kids to learn and to grow intellectually, they need that sense of belonging and, and I do think having watched my kids go through, K12 public school and having visited many public schools that we understand that and appreciate that much more at the primary school level, ages K through 3.
There's a lot of attention to helping students to feel connected and like they belong in the classroom. I know that it is not uniform across all schools, but there is a kind of philosophy that pedagogy that really values the importance of creating classrooms where kids belong in the early years.
But what research in the 21st century has really made clear is that that just persists through adolescents and then through adulthood. And in order to learn, in order to grow, we need a sense of connection. It's a kind of precondition to growth. Otherwise if we don't, if we feel like under threat in the classroom or we feel like we don't fully belong, our minds are really not in a good state to receive new information and to assimilate it and to grow and to learn and to challenge ourselves.
So that I think is really key, that belonging isn't just a byproduct or consequence of success, it's a precondition for it. And that's the basic message. You really do need it. At least at some minimal level. And if kids don't fully feel like they fit in, they feel like they're outsiders that will generally be antithetical to learning.
And I say generally just because I also know at the same time that being an outsider, feeling different is also a source of intellectual growth itself, treated the right way. But I think the sort of overarching message here is that belonging is sort of like soil for growth. So how do you create a classroom where kids feel nurtured, feel like they belong?
It breaks down into sending three messages and also creating the reality of these three ideas. One is you are seen, which we were talking about earlier, the second is you have potential to grow, to contribute to a larger mission, and the third is, you're not alone here. We're in it together. We're gonna learn together, we're gonna overcome adversity together.
So those three messages, if you can send those messages and create the reality in your classroom. Then you're golden. Then you're golden. The trick is, is that oftentimes we think we've created this reality for our kids, when in fact, from their subjective point of view, that's not what they're living out or experiencing.
And so a lot of the research that I feel like I'm more of a curator for in this field of social psychology just underscores how so many factors can chip away at that sense of belonging, if it's not constantly being reinforced and worked at and that includes negative stereotypes, includes sort of human biases.
So it's a challenge, but on the whole if we can create that reality and send those three messages that can be hugely beneficial for kids. And the re's a whole suite of strategies for doing that. There's a whole suite of strategies for doing that now that are backed up by the science.
Lainie Rowell: Thank you for taking a step back and talking about belonging being the pre-condition for learning and growing. I do think that is essential to point out. I'm just so excited I jumped ahead. We have talked about that idea of feeling seen not just in education but cradle to grave, that's a great way to put it. Our whole lives, we want these things and what I was wondering is could you talk about the idea of, "you have potential" and maybe some specific examples of how that might look in a classroom. And I do wanna add a note. I'm very sensitive to the point that you made so clearly about, you know, in the earlier years in elementary, especially just given the organization of elementary where we have one teacher of teaching multiple subjects, and so that naturally tends to lend itself, I would think more to belonging because these kids are with us all day.
I still think we have to be very, very much worried about the kids who don't hear their names very often because they fly under the radar, the kids who are getting a lot of negative attention cuz they're making some poor choices. There's all sorts of things that are going on even in a self-contained classroom.
But as you pointed out, when we get onto secondary years where we have kids jumping between five, six, maybe more classrooms, that sense of belonging can be even harder to cultivate.
Geoff Cohen: Yes.
Lainie Rowell: And I wanna point out one thing that you do really, really well in the book. Well, there's a lot of things, but I like how you talk about not assuming what someone else is thinking or feeling.
It's such a important, basic thing, right? That we can think a child feels like they belong. That doesn't make it so.
Geoff Cohen: Absolutely. And. I mean, we experience this in our day-to-day lives where you feel comfortable. Then it turns out afterwards you discovered that other people sharing that situation with you weren't, and I think that's a really key lesson that you're highlighting for the classroom.
And just to kind of give one quick example of that the work by Claude Steele, Josh Aarons, and Steve Spencer, and so many others on stereotype threat exemplifies that idea. Right, and they show that for members of negatively stereotype groups such as students of color in school, women in stem, the fact that we live in a society where negative stereotypes are pervasive, make the classroom subjectively very different and often more threatening for them.
And to make a long story short, with their research, what they show is that an everyday ritual, the standardized test. For let's say white students in the classroom. That's just a kind of an ordinary ritual. Yeah. It might be a little stressful. I might be worried about my abilities being evaluated, but for members of negatively stereotype groups such as African Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans, that test is more freighted with threat because there is this possibility in my mind that if I do poorly, it could be used to validate this negative stereotype that's out there in the classroom and in the wider world about my group. And so it makes the test a psychologically altogether different experience for me as a minority group member than it is for a white student. There's sort of a kind of greater intensity and variety of threat that come to bear when I'm taking that test.
So for a teacher who gives out a test, they might be thinking, this is just regular test, but from the subjective point of view of the student, that might be true for some students, but for others it may not be. And one very difficult challenge to being an educator today is that students are coming from such a wide range of backgrounds and groups that there's such a wide range of sensitivities of which we can never be fully aware.
And so to create a classroom where all feel like they belong is a fine art.
Lainie Rowell: One of the things you point out in your beautiful book is sometimes we just need to ask people, right? Rather than assuming we know how people are gonna feel about things asking and how can we make this a valuable experience?
How can we make this a less, less of a threatening experience?
Geoff Cohen: Yeah, that's right. I just wanna make two points. One is that even though there is this way in which classrooms can be experienced so differently if we're wise to that as educators, we can kind of better address the sort of wide range of sensitivities and create classrooms that are conducive to all kids' sense of belonging.
And to give one example of this. We did a study many years ago. This was with Claude Steele and Lee Ross and David Jaeger, where we were looking at how teachers give critical feedback to kids in their classroom. And I'm gonna sort of simplify the story here, but what we found was that when black students get critical feedback from a white teacher, they're more likely to think that I might have something to do with bias against them or against their group than white students. And this is an example of stereotype threat. This idea that when I'm in a certain situation where I know the stereotype could be used against me, it, it's just natural to wonder if the stereotype is, is being applied, so as a minority student, getting that critical feedback from a white teacher, I'm understandably worried. And apprehensive about the possibility that this feedback might have nothing to do with the quality of my work and be more of an indication of the teacher's bias against me. So from the first person point of view of the student that feedback interaction is more freighted for a kid who's contending with a negative stereotype than it is for a kid who's not.
So what can you do about it? Well, one way, if you kind of understand that, you can kind of equate the subjective playing field as a teacher. And one way to do that in this situation is to say upfront, before you give the criticism I'm giving you, let's just be clear here, I am giving you this critical feedback because I have high standards and I believe in your potential to reach them.
So what I'm doing there is I'm disambiguating the intention, but behind the feedback and almost kind of inverting its meaning so that now you know that the critical nature of the feedback that I'm giving you is actually an affirmation of my belief in your potential. And what we found in numerous studies is that that pretty much closes the gap.
The racial gap in response to feedback. For instance, in one study, the number of black children who revise their essay after getting feedback from their teacher jumped from 17% in a control condition to 71% among those who got that note. So that's one point I would make. That's just an example of how yeah, we can kind of change the situation, the way we give feedback to create a more equitably experienced classroom.
The second point I would make is just the value of perspective getting. This is a term from Nick Epley and his colleagues. This idea that the best way to find out how people are experiencing a situation is to ask them. And you can kind of look at the research, I think in social psychology and the social sciences more generally, especially in qualitative studies as exercise in perspective getting, just kind of find out, ask people you know, in a safe environment how they're experiencing a classroom.
Or if there's a problem, like a kid's misbehaving, take them to the side and in a sort of non-judgmental way, inquire. But also the research that Claude and others have done on stereotype threat is an example of perspective getting, you're trying to understand the experience, that first person experience of being in a school situation.
And rather than assume you know it, as we too often do, we kind of have a hubris as human beings, you can ask people for it and there's no substitute for open communication and pretty much just asking good questions and listening to the answers, which is just getting harder to do in the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
And given the stressors and challenges that I know so many teachers experience, I know it's hard, but it gives us a great leverage, gives us great leverage if we really understand how our classroom is being experienced. And it takes some courage to kind of inquire because sometimes the news isn't as happy as you would hope it would be.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah, I'm soaking it in and taking lots of notes. One personal struggle, and this is actually where it might tie back to gratitude, is that I want to overwhelm with the positive, I want them to know that I see all the good in them, but I get hesitant about that criticism because I don't want them to think I'm just seeing the negative. So I guess my strategy would be to give a lot of authentic praise, not just vapid praise, but authentic praise.
I think what would help me give that critical feedback is, like you said, couching it in the I see you have potential and that's why I wanna give you this feedback, cuz I know you can get there. I think that's a game changer. I think that really helps people like me because I think there's all sorts of spectrum on that, right?
Like some teachers who are ready to jump on the, you could be doing this, this, and this because they care and they want their kids to improve, but the kids don't know that that's where that's coming from. So you have to explicitly say it.
Geoff Cohen: That's right. You have to explicitly say, and I wanna kind of call out one thing that you said that's very important, which is it has to be authentic.
It can't just be lip service. I'm just saying this. Right. And so what that means, I think, is that it, it can take many forms that, that message I believe in. You can take so many forms, it could take the form that I gave where you're just expressing high standards and a belief in the student's potential to meet them.
It could take the form of expressing to the student what you really appreciated in an essay or their work or finding sort of things to be grateful about them that you think if they cultivated, could really help them to achieve their academic dreams. So it can take many forms. And I think what's really key is that it'd be authentic because people hate the research suggests this is worked by Harry Reese and others. Like the one thing that really makes people feel connected is that feeling mutual responsiveness. I feel like you're seeing me as an individual, not just applying a recipe. Right? And so a lot of this is about mindset and creating classrooms where Teachers genuinely have that mindset that, you know, I really do believe in you, and it's coming across day in, day out in word and indeed.
And there's so many ways to do that. Another just kind of quick example is just to call out this work by Yuri Treeseman and Claude Steele on the power of honors classrooms. So one of the best ways it turns out to help all students, especially those who are coming from under-resourced backgrounds achieve is to enroll them in honors classrooms, ironically.
Accelerate rather than remediate. But you need sort of good scaffolds and supports there for them to kind of reach the higher standard. But an abundance of research, including some pretty rigorous research by Sarah Cohodes shows that when students from underprivileged backgrounds are put in an environment where they're being asked to achieve a higher standard, and they feel like they are selected to be part of an elite group of students whose potential is recognized, they actually do better and they often meet that standard.
Yuri Treeseman's research to suggests this. There's a wonderful old movie about a famous teacher, Jaime Escalante, who kind of did this in East LA putting all his East LA largely immigrant Mexican kids into an honors calculus class and getting incredible results that movie is about 90% true, and it's been documented in a book by Jay Matthews as well.
This is another approach in which we can kind of weave this message of you have potential into our day-to-day interactions in an authentic way that's kind of continually reinforced.
Lainie Rowell: I'm gonna encourage the listener to maybe even hit pause right now and to think back on someone in their life who has given them that message of you have potential. Because if I go back and I think about some critical, sliding door moments in my life, often there was someone there seeing something in me that I didn't even see in myself. And I think that's hugely important. And not just to be on brand, but to go back to gratitude.
Take the moment to pause and notice who in your past has done it. Pay attention to who's doing it now, they're models to you and they help you do it for other people, in my opinion. So I wanna give you an opportunity. Now, Geoff, you've talked about two of the messages of belongings that I heard you speak about at the conference and I wanna give you the opportunity for the third. So we talked about you are seen, you have potential, and I wondered if you had a story or an example of you are not alone and how that has played out in a classroom.
Geoff Cohen: I've been sort of thinking of this, that, you know, the problems that we face as people can be very, very different at different stages in our lives, different eras, but the solution seems always to be the same, which is we kind of figure it out together.
I think that one of the key messages of belonging is that sense that I got people in my corner. I'm not alone. The metaphor I use is that when you're with people, you feel part of a larger group, it's like a kind of psychological perch, and you feel stronger because the problems, though they remain, they kind of loom less large and they seem more surmountable from that perch. And I think a lot of the research suggests that when we feel that sense of, of connectedness, we feel stronger, we're able to overcome challenges more constructively, and we, we persist, we persist even through adversity. So to give one example of this, I mean, there, there's so many, but in, in the classroom, one of the things that often happens for kids from marginalized backgrounds is that they feel alone.
They feel alone in school, especially in schools where they're in the minority and they feel like they're maybe not welcome there. So, kids from underrepresented groups or first generation students Yuri Treeseman observed African-American college students and he observed that when they were struggling in math, they often spent hours alone toiling away at the problem sets in his calculus course, he just was sort of engaged in some observational research, whereas other students, the white students and the Asian students worked together to figure them out. And so that's why he partly created this program that was not only honorific, but involved a lot of group study where people were working together to solve problems together, solve the problem set, and they were kind of structured group study sessions. But what this does is when you're working together in a group, you get two pieces of information. First, you learn how to do the problems. If you're stuck, you don't perseverate with the wrong strategy. You get a little feedback from somebody else who knows how to deal with it.
So that's the first bit of information you get. The second bit of information you get is that you're not alone here. Everyone's struggling with the material. It's not something unique to you or people like you, it, it's about the nature of growth, that it takes effort and an involved struggle always. And when you're in a group, you kind of get that social proof that, okay we're all in this together, we're all struggling. So it's not just something about me, it's not just something about my group.
To give an example of a strategy that can be really helpful here, some work by Greg Walton and David Jaeger and myself has shown that if you can give first year students, minority students, first generation students, or students from disadvantaged background information says, Hey, guess what? As you're going through the college transition, it's very normal at times to feel like you don't belong. It takes some time as well to find your niche. So what we did is to send this message to first generation students in various ways, but to simplify the study we shared stories with them from senior students at their school, and those stories just conveyed to the younger students that, Hey, you know, I, I had first coming into this college. I, there were long periods of time when I felt alone and when I didn't really know what I was doing or who I could reach out to, but that's normal.
And then the second bit of information conveyed by the stories is that with time, things got better. If I kind of used some strategies knocked on professor's doors. Put myself out there, maybe joined a study group, that things over time got better and we found that giving kids that that information in their first year of college had these large and long range benefits.
For example, it halved the achievement gap between black students and their white peers over their four years of college, even though it was just a one hour experience in their first year. And then years and years later, researched by Shannon Brady found that those students who got that message at that kind of key transition, they were just set on a better trajectory so that years later they reported more satisfying careers and even better wellbeing and health. So the power of that message, you're not alone helps people to kind of overcome these challenges that they might feel otherwise alone in facing. And that's just, that's just one example.
And I don't wanna overclaim here too, I don't wanna overclaim here. There's a nice new study by Greg Walton and his colleagues showing that that intervention that I just described, that that really works best in environments, in colleges where there really is the opportunity to belong. If you're in an environment where, even if I feel like I belong, the professors won't answer my emails or open their doors, then it's not gonna work.
These right kind of messages work best in situations and in institutions where it's kind of like a ladder, like I just kind of get up on that first rung and then I'm on the second and third rung, but the rungs need to be there. So that's an example of just this sort of power of feeling, Hey, I'm not alone here.
There's other people like me and it's normal. It's normal to feel the ways that I do. And research suggested that those are two of the most important messages people can experience that, that message that, Hey, I'm normal. And this get better, this too will pass.
Lainie Rowell: Those are great messages. I think I would probably wanna hear that every day, maybe on the hour.
Geoff Cohen: Thanks.
Lainie Rowell: Like you're saying, and that's great messages that we can think about at these really pivotal transitional times. Thinking of an elementary student going to middle school, a middle school student going to high school.
We can have the older students say like, Hey, this is how I felt and I know you're going to get through this and it's gonna be fine. You're normal. It's gonna get better. I love it.
I did wanna share one example of when you were talking about the you're not alone and learning how to do the problem together. Everyone is struggling. One of the best examples I've ever seen was a middle school teacher who he put kids together and they might have self-selected as far as who they worked with, but the task was to create video tutorials showing how to solve math problems.
And when you're going to the level of creating a video tutorial on how to solve a math problem, you have to break that down at every step and be able to explain it really clearly, not missing any steps, being so specific. And I've always loved that activity for a variety of reasons, the metacognition and so many other things that are happening as this process is going on. They're learning that other kids are struggling too, and they're working through it together.
I love what you're saying, that there's more than one way to do these things. Here's the big thing. The big message is you're not alone. And then there's a lot of different ways you can do it.
Geoff Cohen: And there's a lot of different ways you can convey it in so many ways.
In so many ways. And going back to what you were saying earlier, just kind of perspective getting there's no, there's no solution that's gonna work for everyone, but insofar as you can, if you can ask students how things are going and what would be helpful, that can be really helpful.
I would just do a call out also for a new study by Scott Carrell and Michal Kurlaender, two professors of economics, and I'm gonna really simplify, make a long story short, but they were interested in helping struggling students do better in college, especially first generation college students and students from underrepresented, underserved groups ethnic groups.
And the first thing they did was just perspective game. They just sat down with the students and asked, if you could wave a magic wand, what would make your college experience better? And there were two answers that the students said. One was more faculty interaction, we just wanna kind of get to know the faculty better.
And the second was more information on how we can improve. Hmm. And that was it. Kind of obvious, but that's what they wanted. And it was under-recognized because then they did a study where they implemented these two recommendations from the students. They had instructors of courses, college courses, large college courses, send timely emails to their students, basically conveying this message, Hey, I'm around for office hours and if you wanna get better, here's some strategies for doing so.
And the messages were tailored so that if you're a C student, you got some sort of concrete feedback on how you could improve your performance. If you were getting As then you didn't really get that, but just kind of got reinforcement for the job you were doing so far. And what they found is that this had remarkable benefits, large benefits for students from under-resourced backgrounds. So ethnic minority students their performance I think, improved by about 1.0 grade points on average in the class, which is a just remarkable effect size. And so this comes from inquiring with students and then, and then making these small tactical changes to your classroom that meet the express needs of, of the students. And I love that study because it shows it's, it's really not, it doesn't necessarily take a radical reform, though of course systemic change is, is often is very important. But sometimes it's, it's some of the most obvious things, but it has to be the right things.
And my mom says people don't change. I actually think people do change. The reason we think people don't change is because we're often using the same wrong strategy over and over again. It's like using the wrong key to open the door over and over again. And a lot of times it's, we just need that right key.
And the way you find the right key is to, to ask people, okay, what's, what's your key here? And then to provide it. And that study really gives a wonderful example of that.
Lainie Rowell: And when you're asking for the feedback, when you're doing that perspective getting and saying, what is it that you need?
And I love how you mentioned earlier, in a non-judgmental, I just need to know. The actually putting it into action. When you ask people what would you like and you do it, you also kind of wanna do it in a way that they know it's because you're listening to them.
A lot of times as a parent of school-aged kids there's feedback forms. What could we do better? We never see if any of that stuff goes into action. Yeah. Because unless we're literally on campus or in some way having direct access to the change, we don't even know what's happened.
Geoff Cohen: Exactly. You have to feel, as it goes back to mutual responsiveness, that Harry Reese idea and Avi Kluger, who is this kind of researcher on high quality listening. The ingredients of feeling like you're listened to, one is: yeah, first people ask you for your opinion. You're not shut down.
Second, they expand on it. Oh, oh, you mean you want more faculty engagement? Okay, well maybe we could do this by introducing these, these reforms. And so there's an expansion on what's said, and then the third dovetails exactly what what you're saying. You feel like what you said is then being used and implemented.
So some change is created, and I think those three elements of high quality listening apply to how to create belonging and so many institutions and contexts that people really wanna feel like I'm not just, I'm not just being asked a question and my answer being forgotten. My thoughts and my perspective are now being acted upon.
And that that can be so powerful when it happens.
Lainie Rowell: Absolutely. We care enough to listen, but we also care enough to put it into action.
Geoff Cohen: Yeah, that's right. And by way applies to parenting as well, especially teenagers.
Lainie Rowell: Do you have teenagers right now?
Geoff Cohen: I do. I do. Yeah, I do. And I, I really believe that so much about parenting, especially once kids become teenagers, is, is listening for so many reasons. But the most important one is that you convey that you're always available. So no matter what the problem is, they feel comfortable coming to you.
Yes. And that's, that's really what's key. If they don't feel listened to, if they don't feel seen, they won't come to you. And that means that the problems that they experience will go unseen by you, which we know is not a good thing. You wanna be involved, but also send that message, I'm available. I wanna hear, I wanna hear what's going on.
Lainie Rowell: I've traveled for work, my kids, both of their whole lives and I remember someone saying, well, it's gonna be harder on you when you're away when they're young, it'll be worse for them when you're away and they're older. You need to be available and around. Try and be home as much as possible once they hit the teen years. I know I gotta let you go here. Is there anyone you wanna show some gratitude to?
Geoff Cohen: Well, It's really hard. I am just so grateful to so, so many people right. There's so many hands lifting us up on that psychological perch. I really wouldn't know where to begin. I think I would just cite these general, wonderful categories of people in our lives that if you're lucky, you have mentors. I've been so fortunate to have two or three that have been really influential to me. Friends, my family, and my students, my students, graduate students, college students, undergrads. I think these people really are like hands, we're hands that lift one another up. And I'm just so grateful for all those people in my life.
I feel so blessed by that.
Lainie Rowell: Well, that was well said. And the last thing I wanna ask you before I let you go is how can people connect with you after the show? I will put it in the show notes. I will make sure to link to the book in the show notes because if people have not already gotten your book, they should.
And so what's the best way to reach you?
Geoff Cohen: Three. One is my website, Geoffrey L. Cohen, just my name GeoffreyLCohen.com. There's an opportunity to send an email through that platform. Also I'm on Twitter and on Instagram and those are good places to, to find me and reach out.
Lainie Rowell: All right. I am so grateful for your time. Thank you very much, Geoff, and thank you all for listening.
Geoff Cohen: Thank you, Lainie.
