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Christina Bauer @cabauer.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

happy to see our years-long work on "the strength in mental illness" out at PSPB 🥳 We show that acknowledging the strength people often show in contending with depression boosts successful goal pursuit. doi.org/10.1177/0146...

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Christina Bauer @cabauer.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

In my way to the German social psych conference& getting to try the new night trains 👀 #futureofconferencing

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In doing so, we hope our review can inform the different lines of research investigating beliefs about difficulties from different angles, and help us better understand difficulty beliefs as a larger phenomenon.

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We propose a unifying mechanistic model and show how an integrative perspective can clarify how difficulty beliefs shape motivation, coping, and long-term outcomes across contexts.

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We show that across these various types of difficulties investigated, a similar pattern emerges: People commonly focus on the negative effects of difficulties, and embracing a more nuanced view of difficulties can support important life outcomes.

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While willpower-theory research focuses on a task-level difficulties (e.g., a math task), stress mindset theory focuses on a life-situation level (e.g., stress at work), and identity-reframing on identity-level challenges (e.g., difficulties connected to lower SES backgrounds)

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Prior work has examined beliefs about the effects of difficulties in so far disconnected lines of research, focusing on different types of difficulties, and partly using different terminologies, methods and outcome-foci.

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How rethinking difficulties can shape important life outcomes

news 🚨 In TICS, we review the way people see various forms of difficulties. Across types of difficulties studied in so far disconnected lines of research, we find: re-thinking difficulties as not only implying harm can support important life outcomes. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Difficulties are a common part of life, ranging from daily challenges to chronic adversity. While difficulties can undermine well-being, they can also…

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It was great fun writing this article and creating this model together with @andreicimpian.bsky.social, @aashnap.bsky.social, and Eddie Brummelman - really happy and grateful we did this! :)

Overall, we hope this paper helps us better understand how and when brilliance-beliefs contribute to inequalities. I also hope it provides a useful ground for intervention work in this space, which I think is much needed.

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The other-related path describes how important others in a given environment (e.g., teachers) can doubt students' belonging based on brilliance-beliefs, triggering disempowering treatments of students, which can cause further harm, undermining educational equality, too.

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The self-related path concerns mechanisms that lie within the student; students may doubt their own belonging and they mal also anxiously wonder, whether others see them as belonging in a given environment; both can trigger anxiety and other mechanisms that can cause harm.

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Regarding processes, BBM distinguishes between two broad paths: the self- and other-related path.

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This interplay explains, why educational inequalities tend to be more pronounced in some fields (e.g., philosophy or physics - fields with stronger brilliance-beliefs) than others (e.g., education, or biology).

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If this is the case, this student is generally seen as belgonging less in the respective environment which then triggers down-stream mechanisms that ultimately drive inequalities.

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i) the student is in a brilliance-oriented environment (i.e., brilliance is thought to be important) and ii) the student is stereotyped as relatively less brilliant based on their social identity (being a woman, ethnic minority, or having a lower SES).

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BBM suggests that brilliance-beliefs work in concert with stereotypes; specifically, a student's outcomes are likely undermined, if 2 things coincide:

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🚨Excited our review on the way brilliance-beliefs undermine educational equality just got accepted at Ed Psych Review 😍 In the paper, we introduce the Brilliance-Belonging Model (BBM), which helps us understand when and how brilliance-beliefs work... 🧵 tinyurl.com/5c4aez9w

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We hope this work is helpful in making progress toward a study of inequality that is as accurate and non-stigmatizing as possible. Thanks to my collaborators and the CERA network that made this all possible!

In addition to outlining this approach, we distill it to 10 concrete research practices which we think are key . see here:

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At the core of this holistic approach is a simultaneous recognition of context‐level disadvantage (a focus of traditional inequality research) and individual‐level agency (a focus of strength‐based research) in studying inequlity.

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In the present work, we hence set out to understand how we can conduct social inequality research that doesnt stigmatize, incorporating recent advances of strength-based research and traditional inequality research into what we call a "holistic" approach to studying inequality.

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To counter such deficit-narratives, recent advances in strength-based research have tried to better understand and highlight the agency and strength people in disadvantaged positions often show. Yet, this research isn't sufficient to really understand how inequality works.

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here is the gist: In understanding the psychology of social inequalities, inequality research sometimes portrays people as weak (e.g., reducing them to the role of weak victims) or otherwise deficient, lacking in agency, motivation, and skills- all portrayals that can stigmatize.

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compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

news! 🚨👀Social inequality research can sometimes inadvertently stigmatise disadvantaged groups as weak, lacking in agency, motivation, or skills. In our new review, we highlight how we can come to a more accurate and non-stigmatizing study of inequality. tinyurl.com/3rcjt9e7 🧵...

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Reposted by Christina Bauer

Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Whew. If you work in, or draw on the work of, the behavioral sciences, add this to your reading list.

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Reposted by Christina Bauer

Carlton J. Fong @carltonfong.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

Not sure if I did this right or not, but here are scholars who study motivation in educational settings, mostly affiliated with @aera-motsig.bsky.social and @aeraedresearch.bsky.social go.bsky.app/3PuVgdT

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Reposted by Christina Bauer

Universität Wien / University of Vienna @univie.ac.at · 11/11/2024

Immer auf dem aktuellsten Stand der Forschung sein? 👩‍🔬 👨‍🔬Hier findest du alle Wissenschafter:innen der Universität Wien die auf Bluesky aktiv sind! 👀 ⤵ go.bsky.app/UyRt4h3

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We argue that such discourse can be stigmatising and exacerbate inequalities. With the intervention, we'd like to counter that stigma and highlight the importance of recognizing that people in disadvantage positions often show strengths and are not weak.

People often frame individuals in disadvantaged positions as weak. Think of discourse on first gen students which often focuses on what skills they and their parents are lacking instead of focusing on system-level problems (e.g., why are our schools not more inclusive?).

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Hi Nils, thanks for the question, which gets at the core of our argument. It's important to distinguish two very different questions that are often mixed up: 1) do people face unfair disadvantage that should be changed? (we argue yes) and 2) are people in these situations weak ? (we argue no)

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If you are curious to learn more about the identity-reframing approach broadly or maybe even develop your own intervention (e.g., for a stigmatized group we haven’t considered so far), here is a review I wrote which I hope is helpful: tinyurl.com/3fae4yx7.

tinyurl.com

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In Experiment 2, where we implemented the exercise in a large biology course, the SES-identity-reframing intervention raised grades among low-SES students over the semester. This improvement was driven by greater performance on weekly tests, eliminating an SES performance gap.

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Low-SES students in the intervention group also rated their background more as a resource that could help them succeed. And then, it did. Low-SES students who reflected on their SES-based strengths persisted more and performed better on an academic task (Experiment 1).

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The intervention did so without downplaying the challenges that can come with a low-SES background. Students in both intervention and control group recognized an average of four SES-based challenges. SES-reframing simply led students to ALSO see strengths in their background.

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Results: When asked how their background affected their college experience, 81% of control students saw only challenges, no strengths, reflecting common deficit-narratives. Our intervention doubled the proportion of students recognizing at least one strength in their background.

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Method: We tested effects of this SES-identity-reframing approach in two randomized controlled experiments, each with an active control condition, one a pre-registered longitudinal field experiment.

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The intervention hence acknowledges both, context-level adversity and individual strength and does not downplay challenges. I think this is important, e.g. ensuring that the intervention resonates with students.

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The identity-reframing intervention highlights the strengths stigmatized students show in contending with adversity they face (e.g., the strength low-SES students show making their way through college with limited financial capital or less access to knowledge about university).

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Idea: To test the effect of these narratives and identify a way to address them, we developed an SES-identity-reframing intervention based on an earlier intervention I developed to counter stigmatizing narratives about refugees (see tinyurl.com/4ffj52e8).

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Background: Lower-SES students are often portrayed as lacking in skills, motivation, or potential. In focusing on “deficits” of students rather than unequal systems, such narratives risk stigmatizing students, even if unintended.

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