Academic Fit and Psychological Well-being

Another line of research in the SCIP Lab investigates the individual difference and situational level factors that influence how underrepresented groups (e.g., women and racial minorities) deal with academic stressors. With one project, we are investigating the effects of sense of fit and belonging on African American medical students’ psychological well-being and self-esteem. Our work suggests that individual differences are important. For example, when everyday discrimination is high, Black medical students who are high (compared to low) in racial identity centrality experience poorer psychological well-being and self-esteem (Hardeman, Perry, Phelan, Przedworski, Burgess, & van Ryn, 2016), and this process is explained through lower feelings of acceptance in medical school (Perry, Hardeman, Burke, Cunningham, Burgess, & van Ryn, 2016). Additionally, data from a larger medical student population shows that, over time, racially discriminatory environments are psychologically taxing for medical students of all medical students (Hardeman, Przedworski, Burke, Burgess, Perry, Phelan, Dovidio, & van Ryn, 2016). 

Currently in the SCIP Lab we are collaborating with a team of researchers on an NIH-funded grant on Medical Student Well-being to investigate the individual difference and environmental factors that impact medical students’ sense of academic fit and well-being. Initial findings (Perry, Wages, Skinner, Hardeman, Burke, & Phelan, 2021) suggest that Black, relative to White medical students suffer from greater fatigue and a lower sense of belonging from the beginning until the end of their second year of medical school, and an intervention intended to attenuate this well-being gap was not successful. However, as a result of the intervention, Black medical students did show greater stability in their residency goals, expressing a continued interest in the same residency from the beginning compared to the end of medical school. This suggests that, relative to a control group, the affirmation helped the Black medical students sustain their personal goals over time, in spite of any potential adversities they may have experienced during their second year of medical school.

In our most recent Medical Student Well-being paper, in collaboration with Dr. Max Tiako, we find that Black medical students who attended HBCUs relative to PWIs indicated a greater sense of belonging in medical school, more confidence in their scholastic abilities, and higher goal stability.