The coronavirus disease that emerged in 2019 (COVID-19) spotlights the need for effective leadership in a crisis. Leadership research in applied psychology suggests that women tend to be preferred ...over men as leaders during uncertain times. We contribute to this literature by examining, in the context of COVID-19, whether states with women governors had fewer deaths than states with men governors, and why. We tested this research question with publicly available data on COVID-19 deaths in the United States as of May 5, 2020 and found that states with women governors had fewer COVID-19 deaths compared to states with men governors. Governor sex also interacted with early stay-at-home orders; states with women governors who issued these orders early had fewer deaths compared to states with men governors who did the same. To provide insight into psychological mechanisms of this relationship, we conducted a qualitative analysis of governor briefings that took place between April 1, 2020 and May 5, 2020 (251 briefings, 38 governors, 1.2 million words). Compared to men, women governors expressed more empathy and confidence in their briefings. Practical implications are discussed.
Growing research suggests that minority stress adversely affects relationship functioning among same-gender couples. However, studies have predominantly focused on concurrent, between-persons ...associations and neglected the relationships sexual minority people have with partners of other genders. We used multiwave longitudinal data from 200 young sexual minority women in relationships with cisgender men, cisgender women, and transgender or nonbinary individuals to assess between- and within-person associations between minority stress and relationship functioning and to test for differences in these associations by partner gender. Participants reported on minority stressors (couple marginalization; microaggressions; internalized heterosexism) and relationship functioning (quality; destructive conflict) from the same partnership at 3–7 assessments ( M = 4.44), collected at 6-month intervals. Multilevel models assessing each minority stressor separately revealed between-person associations of each stressor with worse relationship quality and conflict; however, only couple marginalization showed within-person associations with relationship functioning. In multilevel models including all three minority stressors, couple marginalization showed unique within- and between-persons associations with worse relationship functioning; microaggressions were only uniquely associated with couple conflict at the between-persons level. Moderation analyses revealed a negative between-persons association of microaggressions with relationship quality only for participants with cisgender male partners, and a positive within-person association of microaggressions with relationship quality only for those with cisgender female partners. Several associations were weaker for participants with transgender or nonbinary compared to cisgender partners. Findings highlight the importance of couple-level minority stress and partner gender in understanding how sexual minority stress affects relationship functioning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)
Objective: Alcohol use is an important, but understudied, risk factor for nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), defined as deliberate physical harm to oneself without intent to die. Alcohol use may ...facilitate engagement in NSSI by increasing impulsivity and physical pain tolerance. Limited data also suggest that people engage in more medically severe NSSI under the influence of alcohol. Method: This secondary analysis study examined the use of alcohol prior to NSSI in a sample of 79 female patients with borderline personality disorder who were enrolled in a randomized clinical trial of dialectical behavior therapy. We used multilevel modeling (MLM) to examine preregistered hypotheses that alcohol use prior to NSSI would be related to the impulsivity of NSSI, physical pain experienced during NSSI, and the medical severity of injuries from NSSI. Results: Participants endorsed alcohol use prior to 21.96% (47/221) of NSSI episodes, and roughly one third of participants ( n = 27) reported at least one episode of NSSI preceded by alcohol use. For NSSI episodes preceded by alcohol use, more than half (52.38%) of participants reported using alcohol up to the moment of initiating NSSI. Alcohol use was significantly associated with higher impulsivity of NSSI episodes ( b = 1.16, p = .041), but not physical pain from NSSI or medical severity of NSSI. Conclusions: Findings need to be replicated but indicate that alcohol use occurs frequently prior to NSSI and could be a target for reducing impulsive episodes of NSSI. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)
In a randomized-controlled trial, we tested 2 brief interventions designed to mitigate the effects of a "chilly climate" women may experience in engineering, especially in male-dominated fields. ...Participants were students entering a selective university engineering program. The social-belonging intervention aimed to protect students' sense of belonging in engineering by providing a nonthreatening narrative with which to interpret instances of adversity. The affirmation-training intervention aimed to help students manage stress that can arise from social marginalization by incorporating diverse aspects of their self-identity in their daily academic lives. As expected, gender differences and intervention effects were concentrated in male-dominated majors (<20% women). In these majors, compared with control conditions, both interventions raised women's school-reported engineering grade-point-average (GPA) over the full academic year, eliminating gender differences. Both also led women to view daily adversities as more manageable and improved women's academic attitudes. However, the 2 interventions had divergent effects on women's social experiences. The social-belonging intervention helped women integrate into engineering, for instance, increasing friendships with male engineers. Affirmation-training helped women develop external resources, deepening their identification with their gender group. The results highlight how social marginalization contributes to gender inequality in quantitative fields and 2 potential remedies.
Indirect aggression includes behaviours such as criticizing a competitor's appearance, spreading rumours about a person's sexual behaviour and social exclusion. Human females have a particular ...proclivity for using indirect aggression, which is typically directed at other females, especially attractive and sexually available females, in the context of intrasexual competition for mates. Indirect aggression is an effective intrasexual competition strategy. It is associated with a diminished willingness to compete on the part of victims and with greater dating and sexual behaviour among those who perpetrate the aggression.
The purpose of this study was to develop a measure of gendered racial microaggressions (i.e., subtle and everyday verbal, behavioral, and environmental expressions of oppression based on the ...intersection of one's race and gender) experienced by Black women by applying an intersectionality framework to Essed's (1991) theory of gendered racism and Sue, Capodilupo, et al.'s (2007) model of racial microaggressions. The Gendered Racial Microaggressions Scale (GRMS), was developed to assess both frequency and stress appraisal of microaggressions, in 2 separate studies. After the initial pool of GRMS items was developed, we received input from a community-based focus group of Black women and an expert panel. In Study 1, an exploratory factor analysis using a sample of 259 Black women resulted in a multidimensional scale with 4 factors as follows: (a) Assumptions of Beauty and Sexual Objectification, (b) Silenced and Marginalized, (c) Strong Black Woman Stereotype, and (d) Angry Black Woman Stereotype. In Study 2, results of confirmatory factor analyses using an independent sample of 210 Black women suggested that the 4-factor model was a good fit of the data for both the frequency and stress appraisal scales. Supporting construct validity, the GRMS was positively related to the Racial and Ethnic Microaggressions Scale (Nadal, 2011) and the Schedule of Sexist Events (Klonoff & Landrine, 1995). In addition, the GRMS was significantly related to psychological distress, such that greater perceived gendered racial microaggressions were related to greater levels of reported psychological distress. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.
Previous research reported ovulatory changes in women's appearance, mate preferences, extra- and in-pair sexual desire, and behavior, but has been criticized for small sample sizes, inappropriate ...designs, and undisclosed flexibility in analyses. In the present study, we sought to address these criticisms by preregistering our hypotheses and analysis plan and by collecting a large diary sample. We gathered more than 26,000 usable online self-reports in a diary format from 1054 women, of which 429 were naturally cycling. We inferred the fertile period from menstrual onset reports. We used hormonal contraceptive users as a quasi-control group, as they experience menstruation, but not ovulation. We probed our results for robustness to different approaches (including different fertility estimates, different exclusion criteria, adjusting for potential confounds, moderation by methodological factors). We found robust evidence supporting previously reported ovulatory increases in extra-pair desire and behavior, in-pair desire, and self-perceived desirability, as well as no unexpected associations. Yet, we did not find predicted effects on partner mate retention behavior, clothing choices, or narcissism. Contrary to some of the earlier literature, partners' sexual attractiveness did not moderate the cycle shifts. Taken together, the replicability of the existing literature on ovulatory changes was mixed. We conclude with simulation-based recommendations for reading the past literature and for designing future large-scale preregistered within-subject studies to understand ovulatory cycle changes and the effects of hormonal contraception. Interindividual differences in the size of ovulatory changes emerge as an important area for further study.
The present study explored the developmental trajectories and increased well-being of socially excluded young Israeli adult women participating in civic engagement peer groups. Twenty-one women ...participated in a qualitative longitudinal study design comprising 50 in-depth semistructured interviews at four assessment times. The interoperative phenomenological analysis approach revealed three main themes demonstrating a shift from survival to thriving. The first theme, "group connectedness," describes participants' positive feelings from participating in the group. The second theme, "exploring and practicing civic engagement," covers the gains in women's civic engagement abilities and definitions. The third theme, "From flaws to sparks," describes women's changes in mindset and their growing ability for reflection and making plans. The findings are discussed through the lens of the social justice paradigm to suggest a developmental model which sees developmental well-being as a human right. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
In the past 40 years, the proportion of women in science courses and careers has dramatically increased in some nations but not in others. Our research investigated how national differences in ...women's science participation related to gender-science stereotypes that associate science with men more than women. Data from ∼350,000 participants in 66 nations indicated that higher female enrollment in tertiary science education (community college or above) related to weaker explicit and implicit national gender-science stereotypes. Higher female employment in the researcher workforce related to weaker explicit, but not implicit, gender-science stereotypes. These relationships remained after controlling for many theoretically relevant covariates. Even nations with high overall gender equity (e.g., the Netherlands) had strong gender-science stereotypes if men dominated science fields specifically. In addition, the relationship between women's educational enrollment in science and implicit gender-science stereotypes was stronger for college-educated participants than participants without college education. Implications for instructional practices and educational policies are discussed.
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