When I was 16 years old,
I was getting straight As at my fancy college prep school
and feeling great about all the possibilities ahead of me.
So one day I walked into the office of my high school guidance counselor,
and I told him about all the exciting plans
that were coming together in my mind.
I told him how I wanted to move to the great city of Chicago,
where my brother was living at the time, and start a whole new life.
I told him I wanted to go to Northwestern University
and build on my strengths in something like biology
or piano or psychology.
It was all just a path that felt so right to me in my bones.
The guidance counselor was this quirky older white gentleman,
I remember really well,
in response, he looked directly at me
and he said,
"Well it's a nice plan, a great school,
but it costs a lot of money
and they don't let a lot of people in."
And that was pretty much the end of the conversation.
I walked out of that office knowing I had a lot of other support in my life,
I put the conversation to the side and kept moving forward.
But it stuck with me.
And I would think about it from time to time over the years
and just wonder how that interaction or others like it
could really affect someone,
especially if they don't have a lot of other support in their life
or they're not sure what they might be able to do.
So I kept going, I followed through with my plan.
It worked out really well for me.
I continued on to grad school in psychology.
And eventually I found myself fixated
with studying the lives and life paths of young people.
And in this work,
the problem I've come to recognize
is that people are constantly made to feel smaller
than they might otherwise become
by the people and the systems around them.
And this really matters
because it holds us back from seeing and reaching who we might be.
My colleagues and I have also found, however,
that key messages at critical moments
can keep people inspired by possibility.
We've been conducting experiments for the past 15 years,
testing how messages that open possibilities
can change people's lives by expanding their identities,
rather than shrinking them.
And when I say identities,
I mean, all of the ideas that you have about who you are
or who you might be.
This includes the groups that feel really core to who you are,
which we call social identity.
Like, your family can be a part of your identity
or your race, your ethnicity, your economic status.
But identity is more than just all these ideas about who we are right now.
It's also your ideas about who you might become in the future,
which we call “future identity.”
And all these different parts of identity are constantly being shaped
by the environments that you find yourself in,
by the things that you go through and by the messages that you take in.
These messages can either shrink your identities
and make you feel smaller,
or they can expand your identities
to bring more possibilities within reach for you to then work towards.
So to make all this as clear as possible,
let's imagine together a specific 11-year-old kid.
Let's give him a name,
we can use my brother's name and call him Reggie.
At the age of 11,
Reggie's moving from being a cute little kid to a preteen.
He has got good friends, loves his family.
And when he gets asked that question people always seem to ask,
"What do you want to do when you grow up?"
He actually has a pretty solid image coming together in his mind.
He is growing up in a modest apartment,
but he loves beautiful homes
and has an eye for how they’re designed and constructed.
And he likes math,
so he sees himself becoming an architect and designing homes all over the world.
At the same time,
he's starting to learn more and more
about the barriers in his way to reaching that possible future identity.
Everything he's going to have to accomplish,
all of the money it takes to get there.
It's this part that we wanted to tackle in our research.
So we've run experiments testing how kids like Reggie react
or respond to messages that open or close possibilities.
How does that change what they imagine for their own future identities
and what they actually do.
So let's say, somebody comes into Reggie's classroom one day
with a message to share.
And this is just like we do in our experiments.
It's something like,
"Yeah, college can cost a lot of money.
But there's this thing out there called need-based financial aid.
There are these resources and opportunities to help you get there,
tuition can be really lower, even free,
if you set yourself up to get to the right places."
Our experiments show that getting that message
changes how Reggie responds to the question
of "What do you see yourself doing later in life?"
All of the possibilities that probably require college,
like becoming an architect,
become bigger in his mind,
and he becomes 30 percent more likely to see that for himself
and give that type of response
compared to if he just gets a message saying,
"Here's the cost of college, end of story."
What's really interesting on top of that
is that the message that opens possibilities
does more than just change what Reggie imagines.
It changes what he actually does to get there.
Our experiments show that after getting that message,
he plans to spend twice as much time on homework the following night,
and he ends up seven times more likely
to actually complete and turn in a real assignment
the teacher hands out the very next day.
So this is all when he's just 11 years old.
So let's follow this a little bit further to when he's now 15 years old.
He's in the middle of high school
and still really excited about this possibility of architecture in his life
because of the messages he's been getting, opening the possibilities
and the things he's been doing as a result of them.
At this age, he’s becoming more and more attuned
to what we call different levels of status
between him and other people and groups in society
who seem to have more stuff,
have nicer clothes, more expensive homes.
Ultimately, he's picking up on whose lives and identities seem to be setting them up
for all this success that everybody seems to want.
So what we wanted to know in our studies
is how are the messages that he's getting at this point
about his own identities,
who he might be now or in the future,
changing the extent to which it still feels worth it
to keep working towards this long-term goal.
So let's say, somebody comes into his high school classroom
with a message to share, could be a counselor or a teacher.
Again, just like we do in our experiments,
but this time it's a message specifically about his identities.
It's something like,
"You may be noticing that there are some people and groups in society
who seem to have more money or seem to be better set up
to succeed in life.
But actually those people and groups
that are seen as having less and having to work more for things,
they gain some specific advantages because of that experience.
That type of social position leads people to develop all sorts of strengths
and skills and perspectives and connections
that are really key to contributing to school and society."
What we find and replicate in multiple experiments
is getting that message
that you might be a person with special strengths because of your identity,
leads Reggie to feel better about who he is
and his chances in life.
And this is above and beyond just some general positive
"You can do it" type of message.
It's the specific connection between his identity and those strengths
that's especially powerful.
For example, he starts to reflect and he realizes that he has to work a lot
to help to contribute to the family,
and he has to take care of his brother all the time
while his mom is working late.
So he's become really good at time management
and still getting everything done.
It's these types of realizations as a result of the message
that lead him to have a significant boost in his self-esteem
compared to if he didn't get that message.
But it's not just that empty self-esteem.
What’s again interesting is that he becomes more inspired,
and he becomes almost 10 percent more likely
to continue working and persisting every time he runs into difficulty
in a challenging school task or assignment
compared to if he didn't get that message.
And that increase in persistence pays off over time,
it's connected to his grades staying high or improving throughout high school,
which is very different from the normal trajectory of most students' grades
slowly going down a little bit as high school goes on.
So that shift keeps his goals within reach for longer.
And it takes us to four years later.
He's now 19 years old.
He kept going on in school
because of these messages building up his identities
and the things that he did as a result of them.
And he finds himself in this exciting and scary new world of college.
He's feeling a little bit uncertain.
As he looks around,
he's hearing other students use words he's never heard before with confidence,
they're talking about their trips to Europe and all over the world.
So he's really looking for some kind of message
about how his identities are seen in this new environment.
So let's say he's in the dining hall one day early on.
He doesn't know a lot of people yet.
So he overhears a group of older students sitting nearby,
and they happen to be older students
coming from a wide range of backgrounds.
And he hears them talking about the financial aid they're receiving
and how they feel supported at the university.
He hears some of them saying they realize
they're coming from homes and neighborhoods
that aren't the same as many of the wealthy students
who seem to be around.
But it's turning out to help them.
They know a little bit more about how to handle the tough situations
that come up during college.
They know a little bit more about real-world issues and topics.
He hears them say they realize they're bringing more into the classroom
because of their identities and where they’re coming from,
and that it's being recognized.
Getting that message, hearing from your peers or the institution
that your identities are valued
leads Reggie to feel like he's going to figure out
how to succeed in his classes and get the most out of college.
Our experiments show that getting that message at the right time
bolsters him so much
that he then engages in college
in ways that throughout his first year lead his grades to improve
compared to if he didn’t get that message.
So much so, that he ends his first year with grades that are just as high
as students coming from those wealthy backgrounds
and well-known private schools,
reducing the disparity between him and those other students
by over 60 percent.
These are robust effects that we find in experiments
where we randomly assign students to receive these messages or not.
But there's a wrinkle in all of this.
All of these messages, they help so much,
they keep somebody seeing and reaching towards tough goals
that can pay off in life,
but it can take a lot from you
to constantly persist and overcome barriers.
And as Reggie reaches his dream job at a top architecture firm
or in whatever field he discovers along the way,
he realizes that he's feeling kind of stressed all the time.
He's even getting physically ill a little bit more often.
This is because to make it this far,
he's had to be extraordinarily vigilant and persistent.
He's had to overcome barriers in schools and workplaces
that aren't designed for people without a lot of family wealth.
He's had to deal with constant experiences of prejudice and discrimination
in settings that aren't used to seeing someone like him succeed.
We published a review of dozens of academic articles and empirical studies
showing that this type of experience takes a toll on the physical health
of people like Reggie
and leads him to have an increase in levels of inflammation in the body,
which is normally a natural response to something like a threat from a virus.
But it becomes harmful
and over time leads him to have an increased risk of heart disease,
cancer, chronic long-term illness
compared to if he weren't striving in this way.
So in the end, is it even all worth it?
Well, I do think that it is, because our experiments,
in collaboration with health research labs
show that there are ways for him to work towards these goals
and maintain his health at the same time.
Let's go back to when he's in college,
overhearing that group of students talking.
And say he actually is able to jump over to connect
and make that new group of friends.
Or he's able to join some community or organization,
like many that we work on,
that's established to help him form deep and meaningful bonds
with people who may have some shared identities and experiences
and backgrounds that they explore together.
Or he's able to also hold on to connections
in the places that he calls home
with the people that he calls family
and with the culture that matters to him.
All of these social connections and relationships
are essential for physical health.
We've run experiments in collaboration with health research labs
where we randomly assign young people to get a message
that encourages them and shows them
how to cultivate and maintain these types of relationships
while they're striving for these goals,
taking them to new places,
compared to a message only focused on achievement.
And what we find when we bring these participants back into the lab
is that over the course of a year,
that increased emphasis on connection and relationships
leads to a decrease in inflammation of 25 percent.
So by not only expanding his identities
but also keeping them connected to close relationships,
Reggie is able to find achievement and health at the same time.
Now my actual brother Reggie had a very different life path
than the imaginary 11-year-old kid that we just followed.
His life ended when he was struck and killed by a drunk driver
almost exactly 10 years ago.
He was just a couple of years older than I am now.
I really looked up to the life that he was able to build.
It was full of joy and community and success, doing what he loved.
But he had to find all of that
despite not receiving any of these messages we've talking about in schools,
building up his identities or opening possibilities.
I never had the chance to ask him how he felt about all of that.
If there were any possibilities he felt like he'd let go of
or if it all just seemed harder than it needed to be to find his way.
What if these schools and systems that we’re in as we’re growing up
actually supported everyone's vision and potential?
What if they actually encourage people to see
that there is a path to the goals that they're working towards
and that there are ways that the circumstances of their lives,
whatever they may be,
are setting them up for success as they see it,
building up their identities rather than shrinking them.
These types of messages can be embedded
in the ways that we teach important and challenging topics
in areas like science, language, math, the arts, history.
They can be central to out-of-school activities,
like mentoring programs and enrichment programs.
These messages can be backed up by the policies
that are necessary to make the financial resources
that you need to reach these goals
actually available for every kid, without taking on crippling debt.
In the meantime,
as we continue to push for the systemic changes
that would be necessary to make these types of messages just feel common,
we also each have power as individuals.
I'm thinking about you as parents,
as coworkers, as leaders, as friends,
taking the time to show someone that you see who they are,
you see who they could be
and that there is a path to the life that they're imagining for themselves.
That message from you could lead someone to hold on to what keeps them going
for just one more day.
Thank you.
(Applause and cheers)