Yeager, Johnson, et al., 2014, Study 2: Emphasizing how people can change reduced negative reactions to social adversity and desire for vengeance, improved health, and boosted grades among 9th grade students over eight months
Reference:
Summary:
9th-grade students completed a 25-minute in-class reading-and-writing activity: They (a) read a brief article describing how people are not fixed but can change and thus that, if you are excluded or victimized, this is not due to a fixed deficiency on your part and people who excluded or victimize you are not fixed bad people but can improve; (b) read stories from older students about how they used this information to handle peer conflicts, and (c) wrote their own story to share with future 9th-grade students drawing on the materials they read and their own experiences. As compared to an active control condition, this incremental theory of personality intervention reduced negative reactions to a social adversity immediately and, over 8 months, lowered overall stress, reduced physical illness, and improved grades and, at an 8-month follow-up, reduced attributions of hostile intent for a peer’s negative actions and desire for vengeance (Yeager, Miu, et al., 2014).