The main purpose of study 4 was to directly measure whether UVA students experience more identity threat when they are closer in physical proximity to the sites of historical wrongdoings that UVA has committed.
We have previously hypothesized that being in close proximity to the sites of an institution’s wrongdoings will produce greater threat, which will in turn prompt people to mitigate threat by perceiving institutional discontinuity or by perceiving more temporal distance between themselves and the historical wrongdoings. In study 3, we measured the distal outcomes - i.e. attempts to mitigate threat by increases in institutional discontinuity or increases in temporal distance. In study 4, we attempt to measure identity threat directly.
Participants were recruited as passerby. They were offered a free bagel for their participation in a study. Participants were recruited in two locations: in front of the West Complex and in front of Gilmer. Participants were collected between 11AM and 1PM on the following days:
WEST:
04/16
04/18
04/21
04/23
GILMER:
04/28
04/30
Procedure
Researchers offered passerbys a free bagel for participating in a “5 minute study” as they passed by the research team’s recruitment table. People who indicated interest approached the table, where a researcher would record their computing ID (or for non-students, their email address) and record a participant ID. A second researcher would prepare the Qualtrics survey on an iPad, then hand the iPad to the participant. When recruitment was at the West Complex, researchers would note to the participant that the study was about the West Complex, and point out that they were standing in front of the building. When recruitment was at Gilmer, no such note was shared with the participants. Participants were then encouraged to take a seat at one of five seats that were set in the shade to complete the survey.
After consenting, participants read directions that they were going to read about a story about historical events that occurred on Grounds.
Participants that were at the West complex read: “You are currently standing in front of the West Complex, a historic building on Grounds. The West Complex housed UVA’s first Medical School.”
Participants that were at Gilmer read: “You are currently standing in front of Gilmer Hall, a building that was renovated recently. Gilmer Hall houses UVA’s Psychology and Biology departments.” Due to a researcher’s error, the incorrect message appeared for some Gilmer participants. We elected to remove those participants’ data from analysis.
Participants then viewed the following article. They were not able to proceed for at least 20 seconds to encourage them to read the article in full.
Participants then responded to a number of measure to capture their experiences of identity threat and their perceptions of UVA’s institutional continuity and the temporal and physical distances between UVA’s past and present.
The content of the article gives me a good feeling. reversed
The content of the article makes me feel threatened.
Given the article I just read, I feel threatened in my identity.
The UVA history described in the article constitutes a threat to me personally.
The UVA history described in the article contributes to the depreciation of my image.
The UVA history described in the article contributes to the preservation of my values and customs. reversed
The UVA history described in the article constitutes a cultural enrichment for me personally. reversed
If many other articles like this exist, it would be worrisome to me.
Geospatial distance
Think about the location where eugenics was practiced on UVa grounds. How far away does that feel to you? Use the slider below to indicate how far away where eugenics was practiced on UVa Grounds feels to you currently.
The university’s founding values and worldview have endured over time.
The University of Virginia will always be characterized by specific traditions and beliefs
UVa has changed its traditions and customs throughout history reversed
There is a causal link between different events in UVa history
Major phases in UVa history are linked to one another
There is no connection between past, present, and future events at the university reversed
The value UVa places on diverse people and ideas has been stable over time
The rules about who can enroll as a student are different now than when the university was founded reversed
Institutional messaging about who is welcome at UVa has been continuous throughout its history
Temporal distance
The past may feel quite close or far away, regardless of the amount of time that has actually passed. Think about when UVa’s eugenics practices began. How far away in time does the practice of eugenics at UVA feel to you? Use the slider below to indicate how far away in time the practice of eugenics at UVa feels from the present.
Ingroup identification[1 = not at all, 7 = very much so]
How important is UVa to your own personal identity?
How similar do you feel in attitudes and opinions to other UVa students?
have you heard of this history before? [yes/no/not sure]
how familiar were you with this history? [1 = not familiar, 7 = very familiar]
Familiarity with the West Complex
Before this study, how familiar were you with the West Complex building? [i had never been to the West Complex, I have been 1 - 2 times, I have been several times, I regularly work in or attend classes]
show code
study4_raw =read.csv('study 4 - measuring threat/study4.csv', stringsAsFactors =TRUE) %>%filter(Progress ==100)computingIDs_study4 =read.csv('study 4 - measuring threat/Bagling Participant List.csv') #download list of computing IDs from baglingcomputingIDs_study3 =read.csv('study 3 - in lab study/study3.csv') %>%select(computID) #load list of computing IDs from in lab study#which(computingIDs_study4$ComputingID.OR.email %in% computingIDs_study3$computID) #check whether any in lab participant were in baglign study. looks like PID #29 had already participated in the in lab study and should be excluded
We collected a total of 154 complete responses.
Exclusions:
PIDs 72 - 85 were collected at Gilmer but recorded as West, and viewed the wrong intro message. Should be excluded.
PID 29 had participated in the in-lab study and should be excluded
PIDs 28, 32, 40, 62 were not current students and should be excluded. Though 28 and 32 were incoming students, so we may revisit this decision later.. tbd)
PID 81: Pictures (of the historic west complex) didn’t load
Final N counts:
show code
study4_raw = study4_raw %>%filter(!PID %in%c(28, 29, 32, 40, 62, 72:85)) #exclusionsstudy4 = study4_raw %>%mutate(across(c('threat_2', 'threat_7', 'threat_8'), ~7-.)) %>%#reverse score relevant itemsmutate(across(c("physicalContinuity_3","physicalContinuity_4", "physicalContinuity_5","institutionContinuit_3", "institutionContinuit_6", "institutionContinuit_8"), ~8- .)) %>%mutate(identityThreat =rowMeans(select(.,matches("threat")), na.rm=TRUE), #collapse relevant scalesphysicalContinuity =rowMeans(select(.,matches("physicalContinuity")), na.rm=TRUE), physicalContinuity_buildingsSubscale =rowMeans(select(.,c('physicalContinuity_1','physicalContinuity_2','physicalContinuity_3','physicalContinuity_4')), na.rm=TRUE), physicalContinuity_peopleSubscale =rowMeans(select(.,c("physicalContinuity_5","physicalContinuity_6")), na.rm=TRUE), institutionalContinuity =rowMeans(select(.,matches("institutionContinuit")), na.rm=TRUE),institutionalContinuity_cultural =rowMeans(select(.,c('institutionContinuit_1', 'institutionContinuit_2', 'institutionContinuit_3')), na.rm=TRUE),institutionalContinuity_temporal =rowMeans(select(.,c('institutionContinuit_4', 'institutionContinuit_5', 'institutionContinuit_6')), na.rm=TRUE),institutionalContinuity_diversity =rowMeans(select(.,c('institutionContinuit_7', 'institutionContinuit_8', 'institutionContinuit_9')), na.rm=TRUE),ingroupIdentification =rowMeans(select(.,matches("ingroupID")), na.rm=TRUE),ingroupRegard =rowMeans(select(.,matches("ingroupUVA_regard")), na.rm=TRUE)) %>%select(PID, condition, identityThreat, physicalContinuity, physicalContinuity_buildingsSubscale, physicalContinuity_peopleSubscale, institutionalContinuity, institutionalContinuity_cultural, institutionalContinuity_temporal, institutionalContinuity_diversity, ingroupIdentification, ingroupRegard, Race, year, articleTiming_Page.Submit, physicalDistance, temporalDistance, familiarWest, heardBefore) nice_table(study4 %>%group_by(condition) %>%count(), title ='N per condition')nice_table(study4 %>%group_by(familiarWest) %>%count(), title ="Participants' familiarity with the West complex")nice_table(study4 %>%group_by(heardBefore) %>%count(), title ="Participants' familiarity with the history of the West Complex")
N per condition
condition
n
Gilmer
69
West
64
Participants' familiarity with the West complex
familiarWest
n
1
83
2
23
3
18
4
9
Participants' familiarity with the history of the West Complex
heardBefore
n
1
78
2
44
3
11
Power: N = 133 (n = 69 and n = 64) affords us 80% power to detect an effect size of at least d = 0.49 in a two-tailed t-test.
time spent reading article (articleTiming_Page.Submit) negatively correlated with institutional continuity - driven by negative correlation with diversity continuity.
identity threat negatively correlated with physical distance
temporal distance correlated with ingroup regard
temporal distance correlated with physical distance
identity threat negatively correlated with time spent reading article
ingroup regard correlated with physical and temporal distance
Inspecting the threat measure
In the following analyses, items are raw and NOT reverse scored
Call:
lm(formula = identityThreat ~ physicalDistance * condition, data = study4)
Residuals:
Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
-1.74578 -0.45510 0.01026 0.41712 1.98912
Coefficients:
Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) 3.915063 0.179544 21.806 < 2e-16 ***
physicalDistance -0.008464 0.003204 -2.642 0.00932 **
conditionWest -0.251671 0.241192 -1.043 0.29881
physicalDistance:conditionWest 0.003129 0.004356 0.718 0.47391
---
Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
Residual standard error: 0.6829 on 122 degrees of freedom
(7 observations deleted due to missingness)
Multiple R-squared: 0.08033, Adjusted R-squared: 0.05771
F-statistic: 3.552 on 3 and 122 DF, p-value: 0.0165
Call:
lm(formula = institutionalContinuity ~ physicalDistance * condition,
data = study4)
Residuals:
Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
-1.53300 -0.40599 0.08202 0.29836 1.36106
Coefficients:
Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) 3.703751 0.150827 24.556 <2e-16 ***
physicalDistance 0.001463 0.002691 0.544 0.588
conditionWest 0.266803 0.202615 1.317 0.190
physicalDistance:conditionWest -0.001377 0.003659 -0.376 0.707
---
Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
Residual standard error: 0.5736 on 122 degrees of freedom
(7 observations deleted due to missingness)
Multiple R-squared: 0.03222, Adjusted R-squared: 0.008426
F-statistic: 1.354 on 3 and 122 DF, p-value: 0.2601
Call:
lm(formula = institutionalContinuity ~ temporalDistance * condition,
data = study4)
Residuals:
Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
-1.44880 -0.33742 0.04754 0.32264 1.47311
Coefficients:
Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) 4.155431 0.177783 23.374 <2e-16 ***
temporalDistance -0.006640 0.003107 -2.137 0.0345 *
conditionWest 0.012926 0.256127 0.050 0.9598
temporalDistance:conditionWest 0.002972 0.004255 0.698 0.4862
---
Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
Residual standard error: 0.5716 on 128 degrees of freedom
(1 observation deleted due to missingness)
Multiple R-squared: 0.06156, Adjusted R-squared: 0.03956
F-statistic: 2.799 on 3 and 128 DF, p-value: 0.04274
Ingroup ID
show code
#ingroup idggerrorplot(study4, x ='condition', y ='ingroupIdentification', color='condition', ylim=c(3, 5))
show code
#ingroup regardggerrorplot(study4, x ='condition', y ='ingroupRegard', color='condition', ylim=c(3, 5))
show code
#ingroup ID X threatggscatter(study4, x='ingroupIdentification', y ='identityThreat', color='condition', position='jitter',add ='reg.line', alpha=0.3, title='threat predicted by ingroup ID',conf.int =TRUE)
show code
#ingroup regard X threatggscatter(study4, x='identityThreat', y ='ingroupRegard', color='condition', position='jitter',add ='reg.line', alpha=0.3, title='threat predicted by ingroup regard',conf.int =TRUE)
Call:
lm(formula = identityThreat ~ physicalContinuity_buildingsSubscale,
data = study4)
Residuals:
Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
-1.70968 -0.45448 0.04831 0.44101 1.96359
Coefficients:
Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) 3.34895 0.36245 9.240 5.82e-16 ***
physicalContinuity_buildingsSubscale 0.02638 0.07577 0.348 0.728
---
Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
Residual standard error: 0.7 on 131 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared: 0.0009247, Adjusted R-squared: -0.006702
F-statistic: 0.1212 on 1 and 131 DF, p-value: 0.7282
show code
#threat predicted by physical continuity subscales - people subscaleggscatter(study4, x='physicalContinuity_peopleSubscale', y ='identityThreat', color='condition', position='jitter',add ='reg.line', alpha=0.3, title='threat predicted by physical continuity; people subscale',conf.int =TRUE)
