INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND GROUP PROCESSES Unseen Disadvantage: How American Universities’ Focus on Independence Undermines the Academic Performance of First-Generation College Students Nicole M. Stephens Northwestern University Stephanie A. Fryberg University of Arizona Hazel Rose Markus Stanford University Camille S. Johnson San Jose State University Rebecca Covarrubias University of Arizona American universities increasingly admit first-generation college students whose parents do not have 4-year degrees. Once admitted, these students tend to struggle academically, compared with continuing-generation students—students who have at least 1 parent with a 4-year degree. We propose a cultural mismatch theory that identifies 1 important source of this social class achievement gap. Four studies test the hypothesis that first-generation students underperform because interdependent norms from their mostly working-class back- grounds constitute a mismatch with middle-class independent norms prevalent in universities. First, assessing university cultural norms, surveys of university administrators revealed that American universities focus primarily on norms of independence. Second, identifying the hypothesized cultural mismatch, a longitudinal survey revealed that universities’ focus on independence does not match first-generation students’ relatively interdependent motives for attending college and that this cultural mismatch is associated with lower grades. Finally, 2 experiments at both private and public universities created a match or mismatch for first-generation students and examined the performance consequences. Together these studies revealed that representing the university culture in terms of independence (i.e., paving one’s own paths) rendered academic tasks difficult and, thereby, undermined first-generation students’ performance. Conversely, representing the university culture in terms of interdependence (i.e., being part of a community) reduced this sense of difficulty and eliminated the performance gap without adverse consequences for continuing-generation students. These studies address the urgent need to recognize cultural obstacles that contribute to the social class achievement gap and to develop interventions to address them. Keywords: social class, culture, higher education, first-generation students, social inequality The American system of higher education is widely regarded as an engine of social mobility that provides equal opportunities to all deserving students, irrespective of their previous background, up- bringing, or life circumstances (Bowen, Kurzweil, & Tobin, 2005). Does it succeed in realizing this ideal? For decades, sociologists have argued that it does not. They contend, in fact, that the culture of higher education itself plays a pivotal role in “social reproduc- tion”—that is, in constructing, maintaining, and ultimately, recre- ating inequalities between groups. Specifically, the claim is that institutions of higher education produce social class inequalities among students because they are built and organized according to taken for granted, middle- and upper-class cultural norms, unwrit- ten codes, or “rules of the game” (Bernstein, 1974; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). For people socialized in American middle-class environ- ments, college is not only an expected part of the life plan; it is This article was published Online First March 5, 2012. Nicole M. Stephens, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern Uni- versity; Stephanie A. Fryberg, Department of Psychology, University of Ari- zona; Hazel Rose Markus, Department of Psychology, Stanford University; Camille S. Johnson, College of Business, San Jose State University; Rebecca Covarrubias, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona. This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Research Grant (BCS-0844085) to Hazel Rose Markus. We thank Adam Galinsky, MarYam Hamedani, Kate Johnson, Taylor Phillips, Krishna Savani, Sarah Townsend, and Greg Walton for their comments on earlier versions of this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nicole M. Stephens, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2001 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208. E-mail: n-stephens@kellogg .northwestern.edu Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2012, Vol. 102, No. 6, 1178 –1197 © 2012 American Psychological Association 0022-3514/12/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0027143 1178 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.