Purpose reflection benefits minoritized students' motivation and well-being in STEM.

Students from groups historically excluded from STEM face heightened challenges to thriving and advancing in STEM. Prompting students to reflect on these challenges in light of their purpose can yield benefits by helping students see how their STEM work connects to fundamental motives. We conducted a randomized, controlled trial to test potential benefits of reflecting on purpose-their "why" for pursuing their degrees.

Inferences of Masculinity and Femininity Across Intersections of Social Class and Gender: A Social Structural Perspective.

This research employs a social structural perspective to analyze the content of intersectional social class and gender stereotypes. We investigated how the structural positioning of class and gender categories differentially foster inferences of masculinity and femininity. The social structures that organize class and gender differ: Class is marked by access to resources, and gender is marked by a division of labor for care work.

Changing the culture of peer review for a more inclusive and equitable psychological science.

Peer review is a core component of scientific practice. Although peer review ideally improves research and promotes rigor, it also has consequences for what types of research are published and cited and who wants to (and is able to) advance in research-focused careers. Despite these consequences, few reviewers or editors receive training or oversight to ensure their feedback is helpful, professional, and culturally sensitive.

Unpacking Motivational Culture: Diverging Emphasis on Communality and Agency Across STEM Domains.

The current research examined whether life sciences vs. engineering/physical sciences vary in the visibility and value of communality and agency. Overall, we find an emphasis on agency in engineering/physical sciences and a greater balance between communality and agency in the life sciences.

The Pandemic as a Portal: Reimagining Psychological Science as Truly Open and Inclusive.

Psychological science is at an inflection point: The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities that stem from our historically closed and exclusive culture. Meanwhile, reform efforts to change the future of our science are too narrow in focus to fully succeed. In this article, we call on psychological scientists-focusing specifically on those who use quantitative methods in the United States as one context for such conversations-to begin reimagining our discipline as fundamentally open and inclusive.

In the Face of Opportunities: Facial Structures of Scientists Shape Expectations of STEM Environments.

Impressions of role leaders provide information about anticipated opportunities in a role, and these perceptions can influence attitudes about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pathways. Specifically, the facial structures of role leaders influenced perceived affordances of working with that person, such as the availability of communal and agentic opportunities (e.g.

Out of the Lab and Into the World: Analyses of Social Roles and Gender in Profiles of Scientists in and .

Although representations of female scientists in the media have increased over time, stereotypical portrayals of science persist. In-depth, contemporary profiles of scientists' roles have an opportunity to reflect or to challenge stereotypes of science and of gender. We employed content and linguistic analyses to examine whether publicly available profiles of scientists from and support or challenge pervasive beliefs about science.

Science for Others or the Self? Presumed Motives for Science Shape Public Trust in Science.

Science can improve life around the world, but public trust in science is at risk. Understanding the presumed motives of scientists and science can inform the social psychological underpinnings of public trust in science. Across five independent datasets, perceiving the motives of science and scientists as prosocial promoted public trust in science.

In the Mindset of Opportunity: Proactive Mindset, Perceived Opportunities, and Role Attitudes.

Perceiving roles as fulfilling goals offers motivational benefits to students, and yet the features of individuals or contexts that align with seeing such role opportunities have not been studied systematically. The current research investigated how these goal affordances are related to proactive mindset or a person's belief that they can shape their contexts. Three studies examined how variation in proactivity aligns with perceiving more communal and agentic goal opportunities in roles.

My Fair Lady? Inferring Organizational Trust From the Mere Presence of Women in Leadership Roles.

The history of male dominance in organizational hierarchy can leave a residue of mistrust in which women in particular do not expect fair treatment. The mere presence of a female leader relative to a male leader led perceivers to anticipate fairer treatment in that organization (Study 1) and greater projected salary and status (Study 2). This mere presence effect occurred uniquely through communal and not agentic affordances; these patterns emerged especially or only for women.

Open science, communal culture, and women's participation in the movement to improve science.

Science is undergoing rapid change with the movement to improve science focused largely on reproducibility/replicability and open science practices. This moment of change-in which science turns inward to examine its methods and practices-provides an opportunity to address its historic lack of diversity and noninclusive culture. Through network modeling and semantic analysis, we provide an initial exploration of the structure, cultural frames, and women's participation in the open science and reproducibility literatures ( = 2,926 articles and conference proceedings).

Putting Belonging in Context: Communal Affordances Signal Belonging in STEM.

A sense of belonging in a particular context is cued not only by the people in the role but by the affordances of the role-that is, the opportunities for goal pursuit. We investigate this role-based belonging in four studies documenting that the perceived affordances of social roles inform sense of belonging and convey known benefits of belonging. Perceiving more communal opportunities in naturalistic science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM) settings was associated with heightened belonging in those roles (Studies 1-2).

Growing STEM: Perceived faculty mindset as an indicator of communal affordances in STEM.

As students explore science and engineering fields, they receive messages about what competencies are required in a particular field, as well as whether they can reach their goals by entering the field. Faculty members convey information both about whether students might have the ability to succeed in a particular field and also whether students might want to succeed in a particular field-is this career one that serves the values or goals of the student? We hypothesize a novel pathway through which growth versus fixed mindset messages communicated by faculty affect students. Specifically, we explore whether emphasizing the potential for growth, rather than emphasizing fixed abilities, can indicate to students that science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) fields offer opportunities to fulfill their goals.

Can I Work with and Help Others in This Field? How Communal Goals Influence Interest and Participation in STEM Fields.

Although science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines as a whole have made advances in gender parity and greater inclusion for women, these increases have been smaller or nonexistent in computing and engineering compared to other fields. In this focused review, we discuss how stereotypic perceptions of computing and engineering influence who enters, stays, and excels in these fields. We focus on -the idea that some STEM disciplines like engineering and computing are perceived as less aligned with people's communal goals of collaboration and helping others.

Not By Success Alone: Role Models Provide Pathways to Communal Opportunities in STEM.

Because of stereotypes that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields do not fulfill communal goals, communally oriented individuals may select out of STEM. One potential route to engaging and promoting communally oriented individuals in STEM fields is through interactions with advisors or role models in STEM. We first demonstrate the perceived difficulty of finding role models who enact communal behaviors in STEM relative to other fields (Preliminary Study).

A Goal Congruity Model of Role Entry, Engagement, and Exit: Understanding Communal Goal Processes in STEM Gender Gaps.

The goal congruity perspective provides a theoretical framework to understand how motivational processes influence and are influenced by social roles. In particular, we invoke this framework to understand communal goal processes as proximal motivators of decisions to engage in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). STEM fields are not perceived as affording communal opportunities to work with or help others, and understanding these perceived goal affordances can inform knowledge about differences between (a) STEM and other career pathways and (b) women's and men's choices.

Closing the Communal Gap: The Importance of Communal Affordances in Science Career Motivation.

To remain competitive in the global economy, the United States (and other countries) is trying to broaden participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by graduating an additional 1 million people in STEM fields by 2018. Although communion (working with, helping, and caring for others) is a basic human need, STEM careers are often (mis)perceived as being uncommunal. Across three naturalistic studies we found greater support for the communal affordance hypothesis, that perceiving STEM careers as affording greater communion is associated with greater STEM career interest, than two alternative hypotheses derived from goal congruity theory.

Prejudice in context departs from attitudes toward groups.

The analysis offered by Dixon et al. fails to acknowledge that the attitudes that drive prejudice are attitudes that are constructed in particular contexts. These attitudes (e.

Malleability in communal goals and beliefs influences attraction to stem careers: evidence for a goal congruity perspective.

The goal congruity perspective posits that 2 distinct social cognitions predict attraction to science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) fields. First, individuals may particularly value communal goals (e.g.

A change will do us good: threats diminish typical preferences for male leaders.

The current research explores role congruity processes from a new vantage point by investigating how the need for change might shift gender-based leadership preferences. According to role congruity theory, favorability toward leaders results from alignment between what is desired in a leadership role and the characteristics stereotypically ascribed to the leader. Generally speaking, these processes lead to baseline preferences for male over female leaders.

Seeking congruity between goals and roles: a new look at why women opt out of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers.

Although women have nearly attained equality with men in several formerly male-dominated fields, they remain underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We argue that one important reason for this discrepancy is that STEM careers are perceived as less likely than careers in other fields to fulfill communal goals (e.g.

The effect of context on the silver ceiling: a role congruity perspective on prejudiced responses.

Three studies examined role incongruity as a source of age bias in hiring decisions. Building on previous research demonstrating contextual variation in prejudice, the authors predicted that prejudiced responses emerge particularly in contexts where group stereotypes misalign with the requirements of social roles. Findings indicate that (a) older workers are particularly penalized in occupational contexts that are quickly changing, (b) older workers are perceived as less adaptable than younger workers, and (c) the tendency to prefer younger than older workers more for a dynamic than a stable company is mediated by perceptions of adaptability.

Gender gaps in sociopolitical attitudes: a social psychological analysis.

This research examined the proposition that differential role occupancy by women and men fosters gender gaps in sociopolitical attitudes. Analyses of the General Social Survey (J. A.

Experimental tests of an attitudinal theory of the gender gap in voting.

This research examined the hypothesis that gender gaps in voting stem from differences in the extent to which men and women agree with candidates' issue stances. Two initial experiments portraying candidates by their sex and attitudes and a third experiment that also included information about political party produced the predicted attitudinal gender-congeniality effect: Participants of each sex reported greater likelihood, compared with participants of the other sex, of voting for the candidate who endorsed positions typically favored more by their own sex than the other sex. In addition, this gender-congeniality effect was present among Republican and independent participants but absent among Democratic participants because Democratic men as well as women favored candidates who advocated the positions typically favored by women.