Stranger in a strange land: The role of study abroad in civic virtues

ABSTRACT

What leads people to contribute to public life, to strengthen social cohesion, and work to better society? We investigated how co-curricular aspects of college life relate to social cognitive processes foundational for civic virtues and contribute to their development. We examined one widespread type of co-curricular college experience—studying abroad. When studying abroad, students encounter different social norms and cultures and often interact with others using a non-native language. How does immersion in an unfamiliar society affect psychological capacities, such as epistemic humility and regard for others, that may be central to civic virtues? We compared measures of civic virtues across students who studied abroad, students interested in studying abroad who had not yet had that experience, and students with no interest in studying abroad to understand how differences in civic engagement and civility relate to aspects of students’ psychology such as epistemic humility, empathy, and need for cognition.

KEYWORDS:

• Civic virtues
• college activities
• civic engagement
• civility
• empathy

Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by the Self, Virtue, and Public Life Project grant funded by the Templeton Religion Trust to the Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing at the University of Oklahoma. Additional support was provided by the Social Sciences Division of the University of Chicago. We are grateful to Mierel Rehich and Jayda Hart who assisted in data collection and analysis, and to Sarah Walter for help with the study abroad program.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Templeton Religion Trust [Self, Virtue, and Public Life Project].

Notes on contributors

Jeannie Ngoc Boulware

Jeannie Ngoc Boulware, MA, is the Assistant Director of Communications & Research for the Center for Practical Wisdom at the University of Chicago.

Yena Kim

Yena Kim is a PhD Student in Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Howard Nusbaum

Howard Nusbaum, PhD, is Stella M. Rowley Professor of Psychology, Director of the Chicago Center for Practical Wisdom, and a member of the Committee on Computational Neuroscience and the Neuroscience Institute at The University of Chicago.

Anne Henly

Anne Henly, PhD, is a Senior Instructional Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago. She is Director of Undergraduate Studies in Psychology and founding director of the Undergraduate Research Initiative in Psychology.