Jonathan Cook

Pennsylvania State University | Penn State · Department of Psychology

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education can be stressful, but uncertainty exists about (a) whether stressful academic settings elevate cortisol, particularly among students from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, and (b) whether cortisol responses are associated with academic performance. In four classes around the fi...

To advance understanding of doctoral student experiences and the high attrition rates among Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) doctoral students, we developed and examined the psychological profiles of different types of doctoral students. We used latent class analysis on self-reported psychological data relevant to psychologi...

Students from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds can experience stigma in undergraduate educational settings but little research on this topic has been conducted at the PhD level. Lower‐SES PhD students may feel lower levels of social integration as they experience incidents of interpersonal disconnection from others inside and outside of...

The COVID-19 pandemic has extensively changed the state of psychological science from what research questions psychologists can ask to which methodologies psychologists can use to investigate them. In this article, we offer a perspective on how to optimize new research in the pandemic’s wake. Because this pandemic is inherently a social phenomenon—...

What role does intergroup contact play in promoting support for social change toward greater social equality? Drawing on the needs-based model of reconciliation, we theorized that when inequality between groups is perceived as illegitimate, disadvantaged group members will experience a need for empowerment and advantaged group members a need for ac...

Adolescence can be a tumultuous period with numerous threats to self‐integrity. A 3‐year field experiment tested whether repeated affirmations of self‐integrity can help lessen the impact of psychological threat on adolescent (11–14 years old) students’ core course GPA over time. A diverse cohort of students (N = 163) was randomly assigned to a con...

Retaining students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields is critical as demand for STEM graduates increases. Whereas many approaches to improve persistence target individuals’ internal beliefs, skills, and traits, the intervention in this experiment strengthened students’ peer social networks to help them persevere. Students i...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Guided by the early findings of social scientists, practitioners have long advocated for greater contact between groups to reduce prejudice and increase social cohesion. Recent work, however, suggests that intergroup contact can undermine support for social change towards greater equality, especially among disadvantaged group members. Using a large...

What role does intergroup contact play in promoting support for social change toward greater equality? Drawing on the needs-based model of reconciliation, we theorized that when inequality between groups is perceived as illegitimate, disadvantaged groups members will experience a need for empowerment and advantaged groups members a need for accepta...

Background Most people with multiple sclerosis (MS) experience social stigma at mild-to-moderate levels, with potential implications for their health. However, little is known about how adults adapt to social stigma across their lives, or with respect to MS stigma in particular. Using a large national database and controlling for confounding demogr...

A three-year field experiment at an ethnically diverse middle school (N = 163) tested the hypothesis that periodic self-affirmation exercises delivered by classroom teachers bolsters students' school trust and improves their behavioral conduct. Students were randomly assigned to either a self-affirmation condition, where they wrote a series of in-c...

High rates of discipline citations predict adverse life outcomes, a harm disproportionately borne by Black and Latino boys. We hypothesized that these citations arise in part from negative cycles of interaction between students and teachers, which unfold in contexts of social stereotypes. Can targeted interventions to facilitate identity safety—a s...

This study used an intersectional approach (operationalized as the combination of more than one social identity) to examine the relationship between aspects of social identity (i.e., race, gender, age, and socioeconomic status [SES]), self-reported level of mistreatment, and attributions for discrimination. Self-reported discrimination has been res...

Rationale: People living with MS often report feeling stigmatized, but little research has examined the psychological impact of this, which is important considering the high prevalence of depression in this population. Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess, concurrently and prospectively, the association between stigma and depression i...

Little is known about social identity threat from religion or religiosity. We collected data from a diverse sample of Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims across the United States (N = 970) to test whether, and for whom, religion and religiosity, like other social identities, can be consequential sources of identity threat. Results suggest tha...

For almost 50 years, psychologists have been theorizing about and measuring religiosity essentially the way Gordon Allport did, when he distinguished between intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity. However, there is a historical debate regarding what this scale actually measures, which items should be included, and how many factors or subscales exist....

Significance This research represents an experimental investigation of how a psychological process unfolds over many years to affect success at a later period of transition, even almost a decade later. A series of 15-min reflective writing exercises not only closed academic performance gaps in early adolescence but, years later, improved drivers of...

The research presented here investigates potential psychological and health consequences of concealing a chronic illness. Data were collected from 2,500 individuals living with multiple sclerosis (MS), as part of an ongoing longitudinal research project. Questions on identity concealment and psychosocial reserve (a broad measure of well-being) were...

We consider the conflicting multilevel forces around concealment and disclosure that may weigh on individuals as they navigate life with a concealable stigmatized identity. In particular, we explore a tension that can arise between immediate personal motivations to conceal and the potential for disclosure to increase the visibility of a stigmatized...

Evaluative domains such as work and school present daily threats to self-integrity that can undermine performance. Self-affirmation theory asserts that, when threatened, people can perform small but meaningful acts to reaffirm their sense of competency. For instance, brief self-affirmation writing interventions have been shown in numerous studies t...

The Psychological Consequences of Experiencing Stigma in Multiple Sclerosis

A key question about achievement motivation is how to maintain it over time and in the face of stress and adversity. The present research examines how a motivational process triggered by a social-psychological intervention propagates benefits over a long period of time and creates an enduring shift in the way people interpret subsequent adversity....

The two studies reported here tested whether a classroom-based psychological intervention that benefited a few African American 7th graders could trigger emergent ecological effects that benefited their entire classrooms. Multilevel analyses were conducted on data that previously documented the benefits of values affirmations on African American st...

Objective: We conducted a preliminary investigation into dimensions of stigma and their relation to disease concealment in a sample of American adults living with multiple sclerosis (MS). Methods: Fifty-three adults with MS in the United States completed an online survey assessing anticipated, internalized, and isolation stigma, as well as conce...

People who more strongly endorse Christian fundamentalism express more outgroup prejudice (Hunsberger & Jackson, 2005) and yet, fundamentalists themselves are the targets of widespread antagonism and bias (e.g., Bolce & DeDaio, 2008). We propose that these findings are related. If fundamentalists perceive themselves to be targets of bias, this migh...

This study extend research on the “Obama Effect” by demonstrating that it can be rekindled even when temporally removed from the election itself. An intervention delivered in March of 2010 asking students to relive Obama’s election improved minority students’ grades and reduced identity threat for racial minority males.

Two studies support a symbolic firsts theory, which proposes that reflecting on a transformative leader from a minority group can affect students’ performance and psychological experiences. An intervention in November of 2008 asking 6th grade students to reflect on President Obama’s election led to higher grades, F(1, 152) = 6.60, p = .01, and decr...

Two experiments examined for the first time whether the specific content of participant-generated affirmation essays-in particular, writing about social belonging-facilitated an affirmation intervention's ability to reduce identity threat among negatively stereotyped students. Study 1, a field experiment, revealed that seventh graders assigned to a...

Abstract In a national online longitudinal survey, participants reported their attitudes and behaviors in response to the recently implemented metered paywall by the New York Times. Previously free online content now requires a digital subscription to access beyond a small free monthly allotment. Participants were surveyed shortly after the paywall...

Two longitudinal field experiments in a middle school examined how a brief “values affirmation” affects students' psychological experience and the relationship between psychological experience and environmental threat over 2 years. Together these studies suggest that values affirmations insulate individuals' sense of belonging from environmental th...

An experience sampling study tested the degree to which interactions with out-group members evoked negative affect and behavioural inhibition after controlling for level of friendship between partners. When friendship level was statistically controlled, neither White nor Black participants reported feeling more discomfort interacting with ethnic ou...

An experience sampling study examined the degree to which feeling stereotyped predicts feelings of low power and inhibition among stigmatized and nonstigmatized individuals. For 7 days, participants with a concealable (gay and lesbian), a visible (African American), or no identifiable stigma recorded feelings of being stereotyped, of powerlessness,...

Online therapy, defined as the provision of mental health services through the Internet, is a growing field that has sparked an abundance of interest and controversy. A primary concern in the practice of online therapy is whether a working alliance, considered a central component of successful therapy, can develop when participants are geographical...