Supplemental Materials
Extended Examples of Ideas, Institutions, and Practices from Introduction (Self-schemas: Independence, Interdependence)
Mainstream American Contexts
Pervasive Ideas
Institutions and Practices
(examples)
African American Contexts
Individualism and autonomy
Collectivism and relatedness to others
Importance of personal responsibility and
control
Importance of collective responsibility and
community
Notion that an individual should be free from
the constraints of history, other people and
society
Notion that an individual is fundamentally
connected to history, other people and society
Politics: concern for how issues affect one’s
personal control, voting as personal
responsibility
Politics: concern for how issues affect one’s
community, voting as collective responsibility
Historical Holidays: celebrate and emphasize
individual freedom and independence (e.g.,
Independence Day, Veteran’s Day)
Historical Holidays: celebrate and emphasize
related and collective experiences of African
Americans (e.g., Black History Month,
Kwanzaa)
Parenting Practices: associate pride with
individual autonomy and adhering to personal
responsibility, encourage individual effort
Parenting Practices: associate pride with
relatedness to others including racial/ethnic
group and adhering to collective
responsibility, encourage cooperative effort
Religion: church as separate and independent
from other societal intuitions; focus on
improving and helping the individual (e.g.,
personal salvation)
Religion: church as connected and
interdependent with other societal institutions
(e.g., schools, politics); focus on improving
and helping the community (e.g., community
outreach)
Supplementary Materials (continued)
Preliminary Analysis for Pilot Experiment
First to establish that the two speaker application tasks were psychologically
commensurate (i.e., equally engaging) we compared the word count and emotional positivity of
the self-descriptions and speeches. Additionally, we compared mentions of achievements and
aspirations in the self-descriptions. To assess word count and emotional positivity we used the
Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) text analysis program (Pennebaker, Francis, &
Booth, 2001). LIWC sorts text into categories using an internal dictionary and indicates the
percentage of total words for each category— for our purposes the relevant categories were word
count, positive emotion words (e.g., happy), and negative emotion words (e.g., sad).
A paired samples t-test confirmed that word count did not differ between the two
graduation conditions for the self-descriptions (Mainstream Grad: M= 38.16, SD= 22.73;
African American Grad: M= 42.59, SD = 25.30; t(43) = -1.57, p= .12, ns). The word count also
did not differ for the speeches (Mainstream Grad: M= 38.7, SD= 18.17; African American Grad:
M = 41.16, SD= 20.18; t(43)=.78, p = .44, ns). To test emotional positivity, following Cohn,
Mehl and Pennebaker (2004), we computed the difference between the LIWC scores for positive
emotion words and negative emotion words. As expected, emotional positivity did not differ by
graduation condition. Overall participants expressed positive affect for both conditions in their
self-descriptions (Mainstream Grad: M = 7.64, SD = 11.96; African American Grad: M=8.11,
SD=13.33; t(43)=-.44, p = .66, ns) and speeches (Mainstream Grad: M = 4.17, SD = 4.35;
African American Grad: M=3.94, SD=4.10; t(43)=-.27, p = .79, ns).
Supplementary Materials (continued)
Results for Separate Study on Course Primes for Study 3
The results of a separate study conducted using a different sample of African American
college students (n= 58) provided evidence that the course primes used in Studies 3 and 4
differed only in culturally theorized ways. That is, there was no difference among participants
who reviewed the course that included mainstream American culture or African American
culture in positive expectations about taking the course (e.g., how much they expected to enjoy
taking the course, how much they expected that the course would provide an inspiring and
supportive environment, 3 items, 7 point scale, averaged to create a composite measure, α=.84).
This composite measure of positive course expectations was negatively skewed (Z=-1.99,
p=.047); a square root transformation eliminated the skew (Z=.51, p=.61, ns). For intuitive clarity
the means and standard deviations for positive course expectations are reported in their original
metric, Mainstream American course condition: M=5.07, SD=1.43; African American course
condition: M=5.48, SD=1.31, t(56)=1.19, p=.24. However, consistent with our theorizing that
including African American culture within an educational setting should activate an
interdependent self-schema that can facilitate a constellation of mutually constituting
consequences participants differed in their expectations related to cooperative behavior and their
expectations about being valued and included. That is, relative to participants who reviewed the
course that included mainstream American culture, participants who reviewed the course that
included African American culture reported greater expectations of cooperative behavior (e.g.,
working cooperatively with classmates, 2 items, 7 point scale, r=.81, p<.001, averaged to create
a composite measure) and greater expectations about being valued and included (e.g., “my
various identities would be welcomed and valued”, “I would be proud to think of myself as a
student in this course”, 2 items, 7 point scale, r=.66, p<.001, averaged to create a composite
Supplementary Materials (continued)
measure). The composite measure of cooperative behavior expectations was negatively skewed
(Z=-2.47, p=.014); a square root transformation eliminated the skew (Z=.79, p=.43, ns). For
intuitive clarity the means and standard deviations for cooperative behavior expectations are
reported in their original metric, Mainstream American course condition: M=5.02, SD=1.41;
African American course condition: M=5.72, SD=1.26, t(56)=2.11, p=.039. The composite
measure of expectations about being valued and included was negatively skewed (Z=-2.33,
p=.02); a square root transformation eliminated the skew (Z=.72, p=.47, ns). For intuitive clarity
the means and standard deviations for expectations about being valued and included are reported
in their original metric, Mainstream American course condition: M=4.90, SD=1.45; African
American course condition: M=5.67, SD=1.27, t(56)=2.23, p=.03.
Additional Analyses for Study 5 (Potential Alternative Explanation)
A potential alternative explanation involves participation in extracurricular activities
(e.g., Eccles & Barber, 1999; Mahoney & Cairns, 1997). Additional analyses suggested that
more general involvement in extracurricular activities or social support from peers did not drive
the results for Study 5. To assess more general involvement in extracurricular activities we
examined whether (1) or not (-1) respondents reported involvement in one or more
extracurricular activities (i.e., participation in residence hall events, participation in religious or
spiritual activities, participation in fraternity or sorority events, assisted on a faculty research
project, held a campus leadership position). The majority of the respondents reported involved in
one or more extracurricular activities, n=313 (96%). To assess social support from peers we
examined an item that asked respondents about the extent to which they had turned to other
students for “support and encouragement”, 4 point scale, recoded so that higher scores indicate
more support, 1-Not at All; 4-A lot; M=3.26, SD=.79. The item was negatively skewed (Z= -1.68,
Supplementary Materials (continued)
p<.001); a square root transformation eliminated the skew (Z=-1.68, p=.09, ns). Both of these
measures were assessed at baseline.
To test the potential alternative explanation that these measures associated with more
general extracurricular involvement drive the results of Study 5 we re-ran the mediation analyses
described and tested in Study 5 controlling for these measures. All of the mediation analyses
remained significant. Specifically, the results for a mediation analysis that tested whether an
interdependent self-schema explains the effect of engagement with African American culture on
African American students’ academic fit and identification beliefs were as follows: Path C,
B=.083, t(279)=2.41, p=.02; Path C’, B=.056, t(279)=1.58, p=.12, ns; CI=.0046,.057. The results
for a mediation analysis that tested whether African American students’ academic fit and
identification beliefs explains the effect of engagement with African American culture on selfreported GPA were as follows: Path C, B=.018, t(264)=2.58, p=.01; Path C’, B=.012,
t(264)=1.74, p=.084, ns; CI=.0021,.013. The results for a mediation analysis that focused on
enrollment in an advanced degree program were as follows: ; Path C, B=-1.14, SE=.48,
Wald=5.70, p=.017; Path C’, B=-.99, SE=.49, Wald=4.16, p=.041; CI=-.49,-.018.
References (Supplemental Material)
Cohn, M. A., Mehl, M. R., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2004). Linguistic markers of psychological
change surrounding September 11, 2001. Psychological Science, 15(10), 687-693.
Eccles, J. S., & Barber, B. L. (1999). Student council, volunteering, basketball, or marching band
what kind of extracurricular involvement matters? Journal of Adolescent Research, 14(1),
10-43.
Mahoney, J. L., & Cairns, R. B. (1997). Do extracurricular activities protect against early school
dropout? Developmental Psychology, 33(2), 241-253.
Pennebaker, J.W., Francis, M.E., & Booth, R.J. (2001). Linguistic inquiry and word count
(LIWC): LIWC 2001. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.