Sense of Social Fit Scale

2018-06-26 10:12 am

Measuring Mobility Toolkit > Measure Selector > Sense of Social Fit Scale

Sense of Social Fit Scale

Factor: Being Valued in Community

Age: Teen, Adult

Duration: Less than 3 minutes

Reading Level: Less than 6th grade

What

Developed by social psychologists Greg Walton and Geoff Cohen (2007), the Sense of Social Fit Scale is a 17-item measure that assesses how much a person feels they belong in a group, such as a school, club, or academic department.

Who

Researchers have used this measure with college students whose parents did not earn a four-year degree (i.e., first-generation college students, Stephens, Hamedani, & Destin, 2014), college students in remedial classes (Devers, et al., 2016), and American and Canadian college students of African, Asian, European, Latinx, and Native heritages (Walton & Cohen, 2007; Walton et al., 2012).

How

INSTRUCTIONS

Using a 5-point rating scale (1 = strongly disagree; 3 = neutral; 5 = strongly agree), respondents show how much they agree with 17 statements such as “People in [the computer science department] like me” and “I belong in [the computer science department].” (Researchers supply the name of the group in brackets.) To calculate a score for each respondent, researchers average respondents’ ratings on the items.

RESPONSE FORMAT

1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = neutral; 4 = agree; 5 = strongly agree.

Google Doc (.gdoc) Microsoft Word (.docx) PDF Document (.pdf)

All Survey Questions

  1. People at [school name] accept me.
  2. I feel like an outsider at [school name].
  3. Other people understand more than I do about what is going on at [school name].
  4. I think in the same way as do people who do well at [school name].
  5. It is a mystery to me how [school name] works.
  6. I feel alienated from [school name].
  7. I fit in well at [school name].
  8. I am similar to the kind of people who succeed at [school name].
  9. I know what kind of people [school name] professors are.
  10. I get along well with people at [school name].
  11. I belong at [school name].
  12. I know how to do well at [school name].
  13. I do not know what I would need to do to make a [school name] professor like me.
  14. I feel comfortable at [school name].
  15. People at [school name] like me.
  16. If I wanted to, I could potentially do very well at [school name].
  17. People at [school name] are a lot like me.

Why It Matters

Studies show that people of color (Steele & Aronson, 1995), first-generation college students (Stephens, Hamedani, & Destin, 2014), and women (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, 2000) may struggle in school (or, in the case of women, in science, technology, engineering, and math classes) because they feel they do not belong there. Yet reassuring students that they indeed “fit” in school, majors, or other groups helps them learn more, earn better grades, and even avoid illness (Walton & Cohen, 2011). Because education and health are important drivers of social mobility (Card, 2001; Halleröd & Gustafsson, 2011), increasing people’s sense of social fit may be one pathway out of poverty.

HEADS UP

Researchers have not yet used this scale with people in poverty. They have, however, used it with first-generation college students, many of whom grew up in families living on a low income. And though it is plausible that increasing people’s sense of social fit could directly contribute to social mobility, no research has directly tested this hypothesis.

SEE ALSO

For a related measure of belonging, see the Belonging Uncertainty Scale.

References

Card, D. (2001). Estimating the return to schooling: Progress on some persistent econometric problems. Econometrica, 69(5), 1127-1160.

Devers, C., Daugherty, D., Steenbergh, T., Runyan, J., Oke, L., & Alayan, A. (2016, June). Enhancing student success: Disseminating a growth-mindset and social-belonging intervention with smartphones. In EdMedia: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology (pp. 1674-1677). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

Halleröd, B., & Gustafsson, J. E. (2011). A longitudinal analysis of the relationship between changes in socio-economic status and changes in health. Social Science & Medicine, 72(1), 116-123.

Inzlicht, M., & Ben-Zeev, T. (2000). A threatening intellectual environment: Why females are susceptible to experiencing problem-solving deficits in the presence of males. Psychological Science, 11(5), 365–371.

Steele, C.M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 797–811.

Stephens, N. M., Hamedani, M. G., & Destin, M. (2014). Closing the social-class achievement gap: A difference-education intervention improves first-generation students’ academic performance and all students’ college transition. Psychological Science, 25(4), 943–953.

Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2007). A question of belonging: race, social fit, and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(1), 82-96.

Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2011). A brief social-belonging intervention improves academic and health outcomes of minority students. Science, 331(6023), 1447-1451.

Walton, G. M., Cohen, G. L., Cwir, D., & Spencer, S. J. (2012). Mere belonging: The power of social connections. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(3), 513-532.