Abstract

College students encounter many stressors throughout their academic life. Some studies have shown that college students have high levels of perceived stress, which may endanger their performance and overall well-being. While individual differences may play an essential role in this stress, other factors like prejudice can change how students perceive stress. This study aimed to measure the levels of perceived stress and motivation to answer without prejudice in college students. The data was collected through an online survey, in which participants had a total number of 748. The initial analysis demonstrated a significant difference between males and females in answering statements without prejudice, where females were more likely to respond without prejudice (t=3.93, p < .001). A one-way ANOVA showed no significant difference among ethnicities and perceived stress levels (F=2.39, p < .067). With regression analysis, we determined that when students try to answer without prejudice, the levels of stress increase in college students. We conclude that females respond more without prejudice in our sample than men. The perceived stress in students doesn’t differ depending on their race, and answering without prejudice will more likely increment students’ perceived stress levels. 

Introduction

Over the past few years, studies have centered on different factors that may affect college students. Living in a multicultural society brings positive and negative outcomes. For instance, some adverse effects are various motivations to respond to multiculturalism, such as responding without prejudice to statements that may lead to looking prejudiced towards other races. This phenomenon may be more current in normative climates that prohibit prejudice. Still, they can also be more independent when normative climates permit more prejudice toward a target group or specific race or ethnicity (Forscher et al., 2015). Individual characteristics of college students may play an essential role in prejudice. For example, the tendency to answer without prejudice has been more latent in women than men (Radcliff et al., 2006), which has increased the interest in studying the role that the nature of genders has over the motivation to respond without prejudice. 

On the other hand, perceived stress is a factor that affects the well-being of students, including lack of sleep, irritability, psychosomatic symptoms, and a tendency to use alcohol and drugs to cope. Minorities may be at risk of showing more stress, given the lack of access to resources to cope with stress, such as mentoring, social support, and mental health services (Jeopardy, 2020). Finally. It is essential to mention that a combination of different factors, like prejudice, can or cannot increase perceived stress in college students; therefore, it is crucial to study these interactions empirically. 

Method

Quick Numbers

46%

Freshmen students

18%

Sophomore students

748

Total Participants

Procedure

The data was collected from UTC College students as part of the Sona pre-screen. The Sona system is a platform for offering UTC students extra credit for participating in research studies. All participants completed a pre-screen survey to participate in the study. The survey was structured in two sections. The first section contained demographic questions (gender, age, grade, ethnicity, and relationship status). The second section had information about internal and external motivators to answer without prejudice and perceived stress. After the participants answered the questionnaire on their computer phone, an email was sent with a link toss their results.

Measures

• Internal and External Motivation to Respond without Prejudice Scale (Plant & Devine, 1998). The scale measure external motivation to respond without prejudice from fear of negative social consequences and internal motivations from personal dedication to aqualitarism. The scale contains 10 items in total, measuring how long they have answered to the example prompts in a Likert Scale, where 1= “Less than 3 months”, 2= “3 to 6 months”, 3= “7 months to 1 year” and 4= “More than 1 year”.

• Global Measure of Perceived Stress (Cohen et al., 1983). The scale measures the degree to which situations in one’s life are appraised as stressful. The scale is also sensitive to chronic stress delivered from ongoing and future life circumstances. A total of 10 items of this scale were used in the survey, all items measured on a Likert Scale, where 0= “Never, 1= “Almost Never, 2= “Sometimes”, 3= “Fairly Often”, 4=” Very Often”. The Scale had a coefficient alpha of .84, .85, and .86 in the three samples where the authors validated their scale.

Analytic Plan

To measure if the level of motivation to respond without prejudice is significantly different among women and men in our sample, we will run a T-independent test. To study if students’ perceived stress was significantly different among different ethnicities, we will run a one-way ANOVA. Finally, we were interested in studying if prejudice predicts students' stress levels, for which we will use a Simple Regression test. The three hypotheses for this paper are lined up as follows:

• H1: Do student females tend to respond without prejudice more than student males?

• H2: Do levels of perceived stress significantly differ between ethnicities?

• H3: Does answering without prejudice influence stress in college students? 

Results

A visualization of a histogram and scatter plots determined that responding without prejudice was normally distributed among the male and female groups. Assumptions of distribution were met without finding significant skewness and kurtosis. Two outliers were identified, which were not excluded, given their valid value. On average, men (M = 4.85, SE = 1.00) reported lower answering without prejudice than female students (M = 5.19, SE = 0.91). An independent sample t-test indicated the difference was significant, t (740) = 3.93, p < .05. The 95% CI around the mean difference ranged from -.17 to .52. Calculations of effect size indicated this was a large effect, d = .92. Considering the test results, we corroborated Hypothesis 1 (H1).

A one-way ANOVA was used to determine how perceived stress differs among the reported race of the students. In initially screening our data, the dependent variable of perceived stress was normally distributed among race groups. There were two outliers, one on each of the White and Asian groups. The analysis was considered with and without these outliers. Since only one student identified as American Indian/Alaska Native, it was excluded from the post hoc analysis. When testing for homogeneity of variance, Levine’s test was no significant, indicating that this assumption was not violated, and ANOVA is reported. There was no significant difference in perceived stress based on race reported, FBF (3, 731) = 2.53, p < .05. Ethnicity explained 1% of the variance in perceived stress. When the two outliers in the White and Asian ethnicities’ groups were excluded, the difference among groups was also not significant, FBF (3, 729) = 2.39, p < .067, η2 = .01. Post-hoc tests also revealed that the means of perceived stress were not significantly different from one another (p < .05). This was true with and without the outliers. Considering the test results, we did not corroborate Hypothesis 2 (H2).

A simple regression was used to see if responding without prejudice increased perceived stress in college students. Before our analysis, we checked our variables for normality and outliers. None had significant skewness and kurtosis values within a normal range (+/-2). Perceived stress had three outliers while answering without prejudice also had three outliers. The model analysis was considered with these outliers since they were not extreme values and appeared to be valid cases. We also found that our relationship of interest was linear, as observed in a scatterplot. Residual plots showed a relatively normal distribution of the residuals and no concern for heteroscedasticity. When looking for possible multivariate outliers, three cases had studentized deleted residual values that exceeded +/- 3. We decided to filter out these cases to avoid discrepancies. Perceived stress was positively related to answering without prejudice, B = .23, t (741) = 14.87, p < .05, 95% CI B [.20, .26]. The slope indicated that a one-point increase in responding without prejudice was associated with a .23 increase in perceived stress. Prejudice explained 23% of the variance in perceived stress. Considering the test results, we assumed Hypothesis 3 (H3).

Conclusion

Females were more likely to respond without prejudice prejudice than males. Likewise, the perceived stress in students doesn’t differ depending on their race, but it is more likely to increase students’ perceived stress levels. 

Learnings to Take with Us

• As we look toward the future, it's essential to reflect on the consequences that prejudice can have on college students.

• Monitoring answering to prejudice among men is essential for future interventions.

• Ethnicity or race may not impact prejudice responses among college students. 

References

Jeopardy, D. (2020). Covid-19 and behavioral health disparities for black and latino communities in the us substance abuse and mental health services administration. URL: https://www. samhsa. gov/sites/default/files/covid19-behavioral-health-disparities-black-latino-communities. pdf [accessed 2020-08-07].

Forscher, P. S., Cox, W. T. L., Graetz, N., & Devine, P. G. (2015). The motivation to express prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(5), 791–812. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000030

Ratcliff, J. J., Lassiter, G. D., Markman, K. D., & Snyder, C. J. (2006). Gender Differences in Attitudes Toward Gay Men and Lesbians: The Role of Motivation to Respond Without Prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(10), 1325–1338. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167206290213