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When my husband Joe had cancer surgery five years ago, each
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Treatment of atrial septal defect depends upon the size and
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DOI: 10.1126/science.1198364
, 1447 (2011);331 Science
, et al.Gregory M. Walton
Outcomes of Minority Students
A Brief Social-Belonging Intervention Improves Academic and
Health
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units (fig. S9) [paired t test, P < 0.02, n = 19 pairs;
median distances from the granular layer were 0.45
mm (source units) and 1.05 mm (target units)].
The present study demonstrated that canoni-
cal feed-forward signal flow across cortical layers
during sensory coding reverse to the feed-back
direction during memory retrieval phase, which sug-
gests flexible recruitment of interlaminar connectivity
depending on the cognitive demands in the monkey
association cortices (Fig. 4C). We used CSD anal-
ysis to estimate cortical layers (Fig. 1, C to E, and
fig. S1), and the observed stimulus-evoked CSD
profiles were quite similar to those in the primary
sensory cortices (17, 27). For some penetrations,
we observed that the current sink positioned super-
ficially next to the earliest-sink contact exhibited
larger peak amplitudes and much longer durations
thanthatoftheearliestcurrentsink.Thisobservation
might reflect the cytoarchitectural nature of A36 as
a dysgranular cortex (28) as well as the direct inputs
to the deepest part of the superficial layer, which is

consistent with anatomical observations (29).
A recent study in the rat primary auditory cor-
tex demonstrated that the direction of interlam-
inar signal flow depends on the cortical “state”:
Sensory-evoked responses were initiated in the
thalamorecipient layers and then propagated to the
superficial and deep layers, whereas in spontane-
ously active “up-states,” neuronal activity was
initiated in the deep layers and then propagated to
the superficial layers (27). These state-dependent
changes in the interlaminar signal flows in rats
are consistent with our results obtained in mon-
keys performing a memory task. Together, these
findings highlight the flexibility of cortical lam-
inar circuits. Further experiments will be needed
to determine whether such flexible interlaminar
connectivity is also implemented and used in
other cortical areas for other cognitive demands.
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J. Neurosci. 30, 10407 (2010).
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24. Materials and methods are available as supporting

material on Science Online.
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Neuron 61, 301 (2009).
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(2003).
29. K. S. Saleem, K. Tanaka, J. Neurosci. 16, 4757 (1996).
30. This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Specially
Promoted Research from the Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to Y.M.
(19002010) and Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists from
MEXT to T.H. (18700378); a grant from Takeda Science
Foundation to Y.M.; and Japan Society for the Promotion
of Science (JSPS) Research Fellowships for Young Scientists
to D.T. (1811234) and K.T. (211438). This work was also
supported in part by Global Center of Excellence Program
from MEXT. We thank M. Takeda for discussions and
comments and H. Kasahara, R. Fujimichi, T. Matsui, and
K. W. Koyano for advice and help with experiments.
Supporting Online Material
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6023/1443/DC1
Materials and Methods
SOM Text
Figs. S1 to S9
Tables S1 and S2
References
3 November 2010; accepted 8 February 2011
10.1126/science.1199967

A Brief Social-Belonging Intervention
Improves Academic and Health
Outcomes of Minority Students
Gregory M. Walton1* and Geoffrey L. Cohen1,2
A brief intervention aimed at buttressing college freshmen’s
sense of social belonging in school was
tested in a randomized controlled trial (N = 92), and its
academic and health-related consequences over
3 years are reported. The intervention aimed to lessen
psychological perceptions of threat on campus
by framing social adversity as common and transient. It used
subtle attitude-change strategies to lead
participants to self-generate the intervention message. The
intervention was expected to be particularly
beneficial to African-American students (N = 49), a stereotyped
and socially marginalized group in
academics, and less so to European-American students (N = 43).
Consistent with these expectations,
over the 3-year observation period the intervention raised
African Americans’ grade-point average (GPA)
relative to multiple control groups and halved the minority
achievement gap. This performance boost
was mediated by the effect of the intervention on subjective
construal: It prevented students from
seeing adversity on campus as an indictment of their belonging.
Additionally, the intervention
improved African Americans’ self-reported health and well-
being and reduced their reported number
of doctor visits 3 years postintervention. Senior-year surveys
indicated no awareness among participants
of the intervention's impact. The results suggest that social
belonging is a psychological lever where
targeted intervention can have broad consequences that lessen
inequalities in achievement and health.

A
n important question facing society con-
cerns the origins of inequalities between
socially marginalized and nonmarginal-
ized groups. Among the most consequential of
inequalities is the poorer school and health out-
comes experienced by African Americans, Latino
Americans, and other non-Asian ethnic minor-
ities relative to European Americans. These dif-
ferences occur at all levels of socioeconomic
status (1–3).
Although many structural factors contribute
to these inequalities, the present research exam-
ines a psychological factor: concern about social
belonging. Social belonging—a sense of having
positive relationships with others—is a fundamen-
tal human need (4, 5). Social isolation, loneliness,
and low social status harm not only subjective
well-being (6) but also intellectual achievement
(7) and immune function and health (8–11). Even
a single instance of exclusion can undermine well-
being (12, 13), intelligence quotient (IQ) test per-
formance, and self-control (14).
Members of socially stigmatized groups, such
as African Americans, may be relatively more
uncertain about their social belonging in main-
stream institutions like school and work (7). Be-
cause their ethnic group is often negatively
stereotyped and marginalized, they may be un-
sure of whether they will be fully included in

positive social relationships in these settings (2).
As the sociologist Erving Goffman wrote, “The
central feature of the stigmatized individual’s sit-
uation in life…is a question of…‘acceptance’”
(15). Uncertainty about belonging, especially when
chronic, can undermine minorities’ performance
(7, 16) and health (3, 17, 18). Social belonging
may thus constitute a psychological lever where
targeted intervention could yield broad benefits.
1Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
94305, USA. 2School of Education and Graduate School of
Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
[email protected]
www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 331 18 MARCH 2011
1447
REPORTS
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Such an intervention is reported here. Critical
to its rationale is the insight that it is people’s
subjective interpretations of the quality of their
relationships, more so than the objective number
or attributes of those relationships, that strongly
affects well-being (5, 19). The present interven-
tion, delivered to students during the challenging
transition to college, was designed to encourage
nonthreatening interpretations of adversity. During
the transition to a new school, students can face
frequent social setbacks and feelings of isolation.
Their well-being and performance may depend, to
a great extent, on whether they construe such
experiences as evidence that they do not belong.
Because African-American students experi-
ence relatively greater uncertainty about their
belonging in school, they were expected to ben-
efit from the intervention more than nonminority
students (7). Further if, as we intended, the in-
tervention triggered an enduring perceptual change
in the encoding of social experience, its effects
might persist over time. Short-term effects might
compound into long-term effects through a re-
cursive virtuous cycle, in which early perform-
ance gains assure students of their belonging in
school, which in turn improves their performance,
in a repeating feedback loop (20). Students who
feel more assured of their belonging may also
initiate more social interactions and form better
relationships on campus, facilitating their social
integration and further benefiting their well-
being, performance, and health (21).

The intervention was delivered to two cohorts
of African-American (N = 49) and European-
American (N = 43) students in the second semes-
ter of their first year at a selective college (22, 23).
To assess psychological responses to adversity,
we asked participants to complete daily surveys
in the first week after the intervention. To assess
their long-term sense of belonging, health, and
well-being, we asked them to complete an end-
of-college survey 3 years later (completion rate
78.26%) (23). At the end of this survey, partici-
pants were asked to authorize the release of their
complete college academic transcript (authoriza-
tion rate 97.22%) (23).
Participating students were randomly as-
signed to either the belonging-treatment condi-
tion or a control condition. In cohort 1, participants
were recruited through convenience sampling; in
cohort 2, through random sampling (23). An
additional campus-wide control group was ob-
tained by collecting the anonymized official
grade-point averages (GPAs) of all European
Americans (N = 1362) and African Americans
(N = 194) in the same class years as participants
but who did not participate in the study (23).
This group was included in secondary analyses
of GPA.
The intervention provided students with a
narrative that framed social adversity in school as
shared and short-lived (24). This message en-
couraged students to attribute adversity not to
fixed deficits unique to themselves or their ethnic
group but to common and transient aspects of the

college-adjustment process. Upon arrival in a
research lab, participants read a report of the
ostensible results of a survey of more senior
students at their school. Most students, the report
indicated, had worried about whether they be-
longed in college during the difficult first year but
grew confident in their belonging with time. The
survey results were said to be consistent across
ethnic and gender groups. For instance, one sur-
vey respondent was quoted as saying, “Freshman
year even though I met large numbers of people, I
didn’t have a small group of close friends…I was
pretty homesick, and I had to remind myself that
making close friends takes time. Since then…I
have met people some of whom are now just as
close as my friends in high school were” (23).
Concerns about belonging were thus represented
as common at first, as temporary, and as due to
the challenging nature of the college transition.
To encourage participants to internalize the
message, several steps exploited the “saying-
is-believing effect”—the tendency to endorse
messages that one has freely advocated (25). Par-
ticipants were asked to write an essay describing
how their own experiences in college echoed the
experiences summarized in the survey. They
then turned their essay into a speech, which they
delivered to a video camera. These materials,
participants were told, would be shown to future
students to help ease their transition to college.
Beyond facilitating internalization, this procedure
averted the potential stigma of receiving an
intervention, because it encouraged participants
to see themselves as benefactors and not as

beneficiaries (24, 26). In the control condition,
the procedure was the same but the survey ad-
dressed topics unrelated to belonging (e.g., change
in social-political attitudes) (23). The intervention
lasted about 1 hour.
Few analyses were moderated by cohort (i.e.,
no more than would be expected by chance alone
and none involving the primary outcomes of
GPA, health, or well-being). Thus, data from the
two cohorts were combined to increase statistical
power. First, analyses examined the trajectory of
students’ official GPA over time. In contrast to all
other groups, African Americans in the control
group showed no improvement in GPA from the
fall of their freshman year, the semester before
the intervention, through their sophomore, junior,
and senior years [linear trend F < 1]. By contrast,
the GPAs of intervention-treated African Amer-
icans rose over time [for linear trend, F(1,34) =
13.79, P= 0.0007; for time × condition, F(1,34) =
4.16, P= 0.049]. The GPAs of European-American
students also rose over time [F(1,29) = 6.88, P =
0.014] with no difference by condition [F < 1].
As Fig. 1 shows, the intervention set African
Americans on an upward trajectory such that the
gap between them and their European Americans
classmates closed over time. By students’ senior
year, the gap was cut by 79% (23).
Multiple regression, with student gender
controlled, tested the effect of student race and
condition (randomized control versus social-
belonging treatment) on change in GPA—mean
postintervention GPA (sophomore through senior

years) minus mean preintervention GPA (fall
term, first year) (23). There was no condition
effect on preintervention GPA for either racial
group [t values < 1] (table S1) (23). However, a
significant condition effect on change in GPA
emerged for African Americans [B = 0.30, t(65) =
2.54, P = 0.014] with no effect for European
Americans[t<1][race×conditionB=–0.43, t(65)=
–2.41, P = 0.019]. Virtually identical results were
obtained when preintervention GPA was used as
a covariate in an analysis of postintervention
GPA [treatment effect for African Americans, B =
0.24, t(64) = 2.65, P = 0.010; treatment effect for
European Americans, t < 1; race × condition: B =
–0.31, t(64) = –2.27, P = 0.027]. The intervention
closed the minority gap in 3-year GPA (SD =
0.36) from 0.29 points in the control condition to
0.14 points in the treatment condition, a 52%
reduction.
Adding the campus-wide sample further sup-
ports treatment efficacy. An agreement with uni-
Fig. 1. Raw GPA by
student race, experimen-
tal condition, and aca-
demic term. Means are
noncumulative and were
combined across cohorts.
Ranges in sample sizes
and standard errors for
European Americans are
N = 25 to 33 and SE =
0.08 to 0.14; for African
Americans, N = 30 to 37
and SE = 0.09 to 0.12.

3.00
3.10
3.20
3.30
3.40
3.50
3.60
3.70
3.80
3.90
4.00
Fall Term Fall Term Spring Term Fall Term Spring Term Fall
Term Spring Term
First Year Sophomore Year Junior Year Senior Year
Treatment
European Americans, Social-Belonging Treatment
African Americans, Social-Belonging Treatment
African Americans, Randomized Control Group
European Americans, Randomized Control Group

Social-Belonging
18 MARCH 2011 VOL 331 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org1448
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versity officials precludes the reporting of raw or
adjusted means in this sample. To honor this
agreement but present the results graphically, we
performed analyses on residual postintervention
GPA with preintervention GPA and gender con-
trolled. Multiple regression on change in GPA
and on raw postintervention GPA with preinter-
vention GPA included as a covariate yield vir-
tually identical results (23). As shown in Fig. 2A,
treated African Americans had higher residual
GPA scores than did African Americans campus-

wide [B = 0.28, t(1620) = 3.97, P = 0.00008] and
African Americans in therandomized controlgroup
[B = 0.24, t(1620) = 2.62, P = 0.009]. The latter
two groups did not differ [t < 1]. (Fig. 2A) (23).
Illustrating its broad impact, the interven-
tion tripled the percentage of African Americans
earning postintervention GPAs in the top 25%
of their class, as measured by both residual and
raw postintervention GPA, and tended to reduce
the percentage of African Americans performing
in the bottom 25% of their class on both indices
(Fig. 2, B and C) (23).
What accounts for these treatment effects?
Daily surveys, collected the week after the in-
tervention, suggest that the intervention buffered
African Americans against adversity (23). Among
untreated African Americans, feelings of be-
longing in school rose and fell with the degree
of adversity students reported having experienced
earlier that day and the day before. As adversity
rose, belonging fell (mean within-subjects R =
–0.45, derived from the average of individual
participants’ within-subjects correlations, after
each was subjected to a Fisher r-to-z trans-
formation) (23). For treated African Americans,
this relationship was reduced to nil [mean within-
subjects R = 0.01], a significant reduction [t(59) =
2.99, P = 0.004]. In summary, the intervention
robbed adversity of its symbolic meaning for
African Americans, untethering their sense of
belonging from daily hardship (27). Like treated
African Americans, European Americans showed
little relationship between adversity and belonging

[for both conditions, mean within-subjects R =
–0.09; condition difference, t < 1] [race × con-
dition: t(59) = –2.04, P = 0.046].
These results provide a window into the shift
in African-American students’ psychology caused
by the intervention. This shift benefited their
long-term performance. African Americans whose
belonging was more robust to daily adversity—
whose sense of belonging was relatively inde-
pendent of their day-to-day adversity—showed
greater improvement in their 3-year postinter-
vention GPA [R = 0.51, P = 0.001] (23). The
effect of the intervention in protecting African-
Americans students’sense of belonging from daily
adversity mediated its effect on their GPA (23).
The intervention thus planted a change in social
perception that, it appears, accompanied students
long after the intervention ended to affect their
performance in college.
Three years after the intervention, at the end
of their college tenure, participants completed a
survey to assess long-term effects on psychology,
well-being, and health. Also, to assess whether
the intervention operated beneath conscious aware-
ness, we asked participants whether they remem-
bered the intervention from 3 years previously,
whether they thought it had affected them, and
whether they agreed with its message. On no
outcome did European Americans differ by con-
dition [t values < 1.35, P values > 0.18]. African
Americans, however, showed consistent treat-
ment effects. The race × condition interaction
was not always significant, indicating that the

treatment effect was not always larger for African
Americans than for European Americans. Degrees
of freedom vary because some measures were
completed only by participants in cohort 2 (23).
If the intervention lessened how much Afri-
can Americans’ belonging fluctuated with adver-
sity, and if it did so by lessening how much they
viewed campus life through the lens of race, then
intervention-treated African Americans should
(i) report greater stability and less uncertainty
about their belonging in school {less agreement
with items like, “When something bad happens, I
feel that maybe I don’t belong at [school name]”}
(7) and (ii) exhibit less cognitive accessibility of
negative racial stereotypes and self-doubt (23).
They did [self-reported belonging uncertainty,
t(36) = –2.01, P = 0.052; accessibility of negative
racial stereotypes, t(66) = –2.01, P = 0.049;
accessibility of self-doubt, t(64) = –2.64, P =
0.010] (Fig. 3) (23).
Given the importance of social belonging for
reducing stress and improving immune function
and physical health (5, 8–11, 19) and the rel-
atively poorer health experienced by African
Americans, even those high in socioeconomic
status (3), we examined effects on health. We
assessed self-reported health, an important pre-
dictor of morbidity and mortality (28), using the
five-item general health component of the Med-
ical Outcomes Study Short-Form Health Survey
(23). We also asked participants how many times
they had visited the doctor in the previous 3
months (cohort 1) or 1 month (cohort 2). African
Americans reported being healthier and visit-

ing the doctor less frequently in the treatment
condition than in the control condition [t(32) =
2.48, P = 0.019 and t(63) = –2.23, P = 0.030,
Fig. 2. Cumulative academic
performance from sophomore
through senior year. Data were
combined across cohorts. (A) Resid-
ual sophomore-through-senior-
year GPAs adjusted for student
gender and preintervention (fall
term, first year) GPA. Error bars
represent T1 SE. Means repre-
sent the degree to which stu-
dents performed better (positive
values) or worse (negative val-
ues) than expected after the in-
tervention in GPA units based on
their gender and preintervention
performance. (B) Percentage of
students in the top and bottom
25% of their college class in
residual postintervention GPA
(i.e., postintervention GPA ad-
justed for student gender and
preintervention GPA). (C) Percent-
age of students in the top and
bottom 25% of their college class
in raw postintervention GPA. For analytic details, see (23).
Sample sizes for European Americans areNcampus-wide control
group = 1362and Nexperimental groups = 33; for African
Americans, Ncampus-wide control group = 194 and
Nexperimental groups = 37.
-0.25

-0.20
-0.15
-0.10
-0.05
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
European
American
Students
African
American
Students
A Mean Residual
Postintervention GPA
0%
10%
20%

30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
In Top of
Class
In Bottom
of Class
In Top of
Class
In Bottom
of Class
European American
Students
African American
Students
B In Residual Postintervention GPA
0%
10%
20%

30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
In Top of
Class
In Bottom
of Class
In Top of
Class
In Bottom
of Class
European American
Students
African American
Students
C In Raw Postintervention GPA
Campus-Wide Control Group
Randomized Control Group
Social-Belonging Treatment
Percentage of Students in Top and Bottom 25%

of College Class
1449
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respectively] (Fig. 4, A and B). Whereas 60% of
untreated African Americans had seen a doctor
recently, only 28% of treated African Americans
had [c2(1, N = 38) = 3.98, P = 0.046]. The race
gap in self-reported health was eliminated in the
treatment condition; interestingly, there was no
gap for doctor visits (23). Future research should
examine whether these patterns generalize to
physiological and physical indicators of health
(9) to assess the robustness of the effect beyond
self-report outcomes and to identify biological

pathways (11).
As further evidence of improved well-being,
African Americans also scored higher on the
Subjective Happiness Scale (23) [t(35) = 2.61, P =
0.013] (Fig. 4C). The happiness gap with Euro-
pean Americans higher than African Americans
disappeared in the treatment condition (23). The
finding of a lasting positive impact on subjective
happiness is noteworthy in light of research
showing that individual happiness is relatively
stable (6).
Participants were unaware of the interven-
tion’s effect, suggesting that its efficacy did not
depend on conscious awareness. Most students
reported that they remembered participating in
the study 3 years earlier (79% did). But when
asked to describe “the most memorable and
important” information they had learned in the
study, few recalled the key content of the survey
they had read (8% did), and few reported that the
study had had “any” effect on their college ex-
perience (14% did) (table S3). There was no
condition difference on any of these outcomes for
African Americans [c2(1, N = 37 to 38) values <
1.40, P values > 0.20]; treated African Americans
ascribed no more effect to the study than un-
treated African Americans. However, indirect mea-
sures of recall and beliefs did show treatment
effects. When asked to “guess” the process of
change described in the survey they had read,
more treated than untreated African Americans
wrote that it concerned how students’ social ex-
periences in college improve over time (50%
versus 20%) [c2(1, N = 38) = 3.79, P = 0.052].

Additionally, treated students endorsed this mes-
sage. When asked to describe their own experi-
ences,moretreatedthanuntreatedAfricanAmericans
volunteered that their own social experiences in
college had improved over time (50% versus 20%)
[c2(1, N = 38) = 3.79, P= 0.052]. The subtle nature
of this intervention, with its influence occurring
outside conscious awareness (29), may contribute
to its efficacy. In some cases, conscious aware-
ness may undo the effects of an intervention (30).
More overt interventions risk sending the stig-
matizing message that the beneficiaries are seen
as in need of help. They may also cause resist-
ance and reactance and undermine the sense of
accomplishment people take in their success (26).
This study provides an experimental, longi-
tudinal demonstration that a brief intervention to
buttress feelings of social belonging can have
significant effects on a wide range of important
outcomes. The social-belonging intervention im-
proved the academic performance, self-reported
health, and well-being of ethnic minority students
over 3 years. The results suggest that inequality
between marginalized and nonmarginalized groups
arises not only from structural factors but also
from concern about social belonging.
This concern can be mitigated by using a
psychological remedy. The intervention provided
students a nonthreatening frame for interpreting
the daily challenges of school. By encouraging
students to adopt this message as their own, the
intervention made this message stick psycholog-
ically. Along with other recent research, this study

highlights how the impact of adversity depends
on its perceived meaning—how it is subjective-
ly construed (24–26, 31–33). Changing subjec-
tive construal is a fruitful avenue for intervention
because many events are ambiguous and ame-
nable to multiple interpretations. Moreover, a
change in construal can become self-reinforcing.
Students who feel confident in their belonging
may experience the social world in a way that re-
inforces this feeling. They may initiate more rela-
tionships and thus obtain more opportunities for
belonging and growth. Brief interventions that
shore up belonging can thus promote performance
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
European
American
Students

African
American
Students
B Accessibility of
Negative Racial
Stereotypes
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
European
American
Students
African
American
Students
A Self-Reported
Belonging Uncertainty
0.0

0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
European
American
Students
African
American
Students
C Accessibility of
Self-Doubt
RasdgasgRandomized Control Group Social-Belonging
Treatment
Fig. 3. Self-reported belonging uncertainty and the cognitive
accessibility of negative racial stereotypes
and of self-doubt 3 years postintervention. Error bars represent
T1 SE. Data were combined across cohorts
where measures were completed by both cohorts. (A) Self-
reported belonging uncertainty (cohort 2). (B)
Accessibility of negative racial stereotypes (cohorts 1 and 2).

(C) Accessibility of self-doubt (cohorts 1 and
2). The y axis in (A) represents the full range of the scale. The
y axes in (B) and (C) represent about 3.00
standard deviations. Sample sizes in cohort 2 only are
NEuropean Americans = 20 and NAfrican Americans = 23.
Sample sizes in cohorts 1 and 2 are NEuropean Americans = 31
and NAfrican Americans = 38.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
European
American
Students
African
American

Students
A
Self-Assessed
General Health
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
European
American
Students
African
American
Students
C
Subjective
Happiness
0.00
0.25

0.50
0.75
1.00
1.25
1.50
European
American
Students
African
American
Students
B Number of Reported
Doctor Visits in the
Previous Month
RasdgasgRandomized Control Group Social-Belonging
Treatment
Fig. 4. Self-reported health and happiness 3 years
postintervention. Error bars represent T1 SE. Data
were combined across cohorts where measures were completed
by both cohorts. (A) Self-assessed general
health (cohort 2). (B) Reported doctor visits in the previous
month (cohorts 1 and 2). (C) Subjective
happiness (cohort 2). The y axes in (A) and (C) represent the
full range of each scale. The y axis in (B)
represents about 2.00 standard deviations. Sample sizes in
cohort 2 only are NEuropean Americans = 20 and

NAfrican Americans = 23. Sample sizes in cohorts 1 and 2 are
NEuropean Americans = 31 and NAfrican Americans = 38.
18 MARCH 2011 VOL 331 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org1450
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and well-being even long after their delivery
(7, 20, 25, 31, 34).
Importantly, the effectiveness of social-
psychological interventions depends on factors
in the context. Such interventions are unlikely to
be effective in contexts without opportunities for
learning. Also, because the present intervention
works by changing people’s subjective interpre-
tation of ambiguous events, it may be ineffective
in openly hostile environments. Lastly, whether

this intervention would work among younger or
less-select students, or students from other mar-
ginalized groups, is an important question for
future research (20, 31, 34). These qualifica-
tions noted, the results underscore the impor-
tance of social belonging and subjective construal
in contributing to social inequality and show
how this insight can inform our collective efforts
to promote equality in performance, health, and
well-being.
References and Notes
1. K. Magnuson, J. Waldfogel, Steady Gains and Stalled
Progress: Inequality and the Black-White Test Score Gap
(Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2008).
2. C. M. Steele, S. J. Spencer, J. Aronson, in Advances in
Experimental Social Psychology, M. P. Zanna, Ed.
(Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 2002), pp. 379–440.
3. D. R. Williams, Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 896, 173 (1999).
4. R. F. Baumeister, M. R. Leary, Psychol. Bull. 117, 497
(1995).
5. J. T. Cacioppo, B. Patrick, Loneliness: Human Nature and
the Need for Social Connection (Norton, New York, 2008)
6. S. Lyubomirsky, K. M. Sheldon, D. Schkade, Rev. Gen.
Psychol. 9, 111 (2005).
7. G. M. Walton, G. L. Cohen, J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 92,
82 (2007).
8. L. F. Berkman, S. L. Syme, Am. J. Epidemiol. 109, 186
(1979).

9. S. Cohen, D. Janicki-Deverts, Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 4,
375 (2009).
10. G. E. Miller, N. Rohleder, S. W. Cole, Psychosom. Med.
71, 57 (2009).
11. B. N. Uchino, J. Behav. Med. 29, 377 (2006).
12. N. I. Eisenberger, M. D. Lieberman, K. D. Williams,
Science 302, 290 (2003).
13. K. D. Williams, in Advances in Experimental Social
Psychology, M. P. Zanna, Ed. (Academic Press, San Diego,
CA, 2009), pp. 279–314.
14. R. F. Baumeister, J. M. Twenge, C. K. Nuss, J. Pers. Soc.
Psychol. 83, 817 (2002).
15. E. Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled
Identity (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1963), p. 8.
16. R. Mendoza-Denton, G. Downey, V. J. Purdie, A. Davis,
J. Pietrzak, J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 83, 896 (2002).
17. J. Blascovich, S. J. Spencer, D. Quinn, C. Steele,
Psychol. Sci. 12, 225 (2001).
18. S. W. Cole, M. E. Kemeny, S. E. Taylor, J. Pers. Soc.
Psychol. 72, 320 (1997).
19. S. Cohen et al., Health Psychol. 27, 268 (2008).
20. G. L. Cohen, J. Garcia, V. Purdie-Vaughns, N. Apfel,
P. Brzustoski, Science 324, 400 (2009).
21. T. D. Wilson, Science 313, 1251 (2006).
22. A previous paper reports relatively short-term results of

this intervention from the first cohort of students (7).
23. Information on materials and methods is available as
supporting material on Science Online.
24. T. D. Wilson, M. Damiani, N. Shelton, in Improving
Academic Achievement: Impact of Psychological Factors
on Education, J. Aronson, Ed. (Academic Press, Oxford,
2002), pp. 91–110.
25. J. Aronson, C. B. Fried, C. Good, J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 38,
113 (2002).
26. L. Ross, R. Nisbett, The Person and the Situation
(McGraw-Hill, New York, 1991).
27. J. Crocker, C. T. Wolfe, Psychol. Rev. 108, 593
(2001).
28. E. L. Idler, Y. Benyamini, J. Health Soc. Behav. 38,
21 (1997).
29. T. D. Wilson, Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the
Adaptive Unconscious (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge,
MA, 2002).
30. D. K. Sherman et al., J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 97, 745
(2009).
31. L. S. Blackwell, K. H. Trzesniewski, C. S. Dweck, Child
Dev.
78, 246 (2007).
32. J. J. Gross, R. A. Thompson, in Handbook of Emotion
Regulation, J. J. Gross, Ed. (Guilford, New York, 2007),

pp. 3–24.
33. J. P. Jamieson, W. B. Mendes, E. Blackstock, T. Schmader,
J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 46, 208 (2010).
34. G. L. Cohen, J. Garcia, N. Apfel, A. Master, Science 313,
1307 (2006).
35. We thank participating students and helpful
administrators at an anonymous university for their
involvement. We also thank P. Carr, E. Chen, C. Dweck,
C. Logel, G. Miller, D. Paunesku, D. Sherman,
S. Spencer, C. Steele, and D. Yeager for input and
L. Cai, K. Crockett, J. Darwall, L. Egan, A. Master,
M. Silverio, and R. Titcombe for assistance. This
research was supported by grants from the American
Psychological Association, the Society for the
Psychological Study of Social Issues, and the Spencer
Foundation awarded to G.M.W. and by a grant from
the Russell Sage Foundation awarded to G.L.C.
Supporting Online Material
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6023/1447/DC1
Materials and Methods
Tables S1 to S3
References
28 September 2010; accepted 14 February 2011
10.1126/science.1198364
Direct Interaction of RNA
Polymerase II and Mediator
Required for Transcription in Vivo
Julie Soutourina,1* Sandra Wydau,1† Yves Ambroise,2 Claire
Boschiero,1 Michel Werner1*

Gene transcription is highly regulated. Altered transcription can
lead to cancer or developmental
diseases. Mediator, a multisubunit complex conserved among
eukaryotes, is generally required
for RNA polymerase II (Pol II) transcription. An interaction
between the two complexes is known, but its
molecular nature and physiological role are unclear. We identify
a direct physical interaction between
the Rpb3 Pol II subunit of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the
essential Mediator subunit, Med17.
Furthermore, we demonstrate a functional element in the
Mediator–Pol II interface that is important
for genome-wide Pol II recruitment in vivo. Our findings
suggest that a direct interaction between
Mediator and Pol II is generally required for transcription of
class II genes in eukaryotes.
M
ediator is a large multisubunit complex
conserved in all eukaryotes (1). It acts
as a link between specific protein regu-
lators and the RNA polymerase II (Pol II) tran-
scription machinery (2). Mediator is required at
most Pol II–transcribed gene promoters for reg-
ulated gene expression (3–5). In Saccharomyces
cerevisiae, Mediator is composed of 25 subunits
and is organized in four structural modules: the
tail, middle, head, and Cdk8 modules (6). A di-
rect Mediator–Pol II interaction is indicated
by previous copurification, coimmunoprecipita-
tion (CoIP) experiments (7–9) and by in vivo form-
aldehyde cross-linking (10). A model of the
Mediator–Pol II complex determined by electron
microscopy (EM) at 35 Å resolution suggests

that several Pol II subunits (Rpb1, 2, 3, 6, and 11)
might contact the middle or the head of Mediator
(11). It was recently suggested that Rpb4 and
Rpb7 could also be implicated in interactions
with Mediator (12–14). However, the requirement
of a direct interaction between Mediator and Pol II
for transcription activation has not been demon-
strated. Moreover, the identity of the Mediator
subunits contacting Pol II is unknown because of
the low resolution of the Mediator structure. As a
consequence, the mechanism by which Mediator
recruits Pol II is poorly understood.
To identify the subunit(s) of Mediator that
directly contact Pol II and determine the role of
these interactions in transcription regulation, we
usedaninvivophoto–cross-linkingapproachbased
on the incorporation by the cell-translation sys-
tem of photo-activable analogs of methionine and
leucine in proteins [see supporting online material
(SOM) text and figs. S1 and S2] (15, 16).
Because EM results (11) suggested potential
interactions of 16 Mediator subunits belonging to
the head (Med6, 8, 11, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22) and
middle (Med1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 21, 31) modules with
Rpb1, 2, 3, 6, or 11 Pol II subunits, we immu-
noprecipitated hemagglutinin (HA)–tagged pro-
teins after in vivo cross-linking. Among the 80
pairwise contacts that we tested, only Myc-tagged
Rpb3 and HA-tagged Med17 cross-linked (Fig. 1).
These results demonstrate that the Rpb3 Pol II
1Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Al-
ternatives (CEA), iBiTec-S, Service de Biologie Intégrative et
Génétique Moléculaire, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex, France.

2CEA, iBiTec-S, Service de Chimie Bio-organique et Marquage,
F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex, France.
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
[email protected] (J.S.); [email protected] (M.W.)
†Present address: Université Paris Descartes, EA 4065, Faculté
des Sciences Pharmaceutiques et Biologiques, 75006 Paris,
France.
1451
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Questions:
1. The article attempts to better understand the origins of
inequality by looking at one specific issue faced by minorities
in work and school. What is that issue, and why does it make
sense to study it?

2. The authors suggest that subjective construal of hardships is
more important than the objective number or attributes of the
hardship. What does this mean, and why does this matter for
this study?
3. The authors argue that there may be not only short-term
effects to their intervention, but also long-term ones. Why do
they think this?
4. This study included two participant variables (each with two
conditions) for a total of four possible conditions. What were
two variables, and what were the two conditions for each
variable?
5. What were the short-term measures? What were the long-term
measures?
6. What was the purpose of the fictional report that the
participants read? How was the message of this report
internalized?
7. Describe the trend in GPA throughout the remaining three
years of college for participants in all four conditions. Who
benefitted most from this intervention?
8. The researchers were not allowed to report any “raw”
information on GPA, but their ability to communicate the
effectiveness of the study relied on reporting GPA somehow.
How did they get around this?
9. The authors argue that, even though the intervention focused
on belongingness, it worked by changing how individuals view
adversity and hardship. Explain their logic here.

10. Did the intervention have any effect on health? If so, what
was it, and among whom was this effect found?
11. How well did participants generally remember the
intervention? Why is this important to the effectiveness of the
intervention?
12. The researchers describe several limitations to their
intervention. What are two conditions they mention under which
they do not expect to get the same effects as they did in this
study?
019 10:05 AM
Module 3
This week, our focus will be on grammar. If you have any
questions regarding the assignments or anything else, please let
me know. I am attaching an APA outline of the paper to help
you get started.
This week’s paper has 4 parts. The first part, you are rewriting
the 2 passages for content and grammar. You can rearrange, and
delete words in the passage to make it work. I understand
everyone has learned English differently and might have learned
different rules.
Next, is the guided writing assignment. Make sure you include
the rough draft and corrected version and label both.
The third part is the list of words. First, describe how the word
should be used, then state if it should be used in APA writing.
Lastly, use only the words that you would use in APA writing in
a sentence.
The last part of this assignment is explaining the use of
apostrophes in APA writing.
For this assignment, you will have 4 level 1 headings (bold and

centered) for each section of the paper. You will have level 2
headings for the first 2 assignments to separate them. Remember
level 2 headings are bold and at the left margin

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