Substantial gender equity gaps in postsecondary degree completion persist within many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, and these disparities have not narrowed ...during the 21st century. Various explanations of this phenomenon have been offered; one possibility that has received limited attention is that the sparse representation of women itself has adverse effects on the academic achievement—and ultimately the persistence and graduation—of women who take STEM courses. This study explored the relationship between two forms of gender representation (i.e., the proportion of female students within a course and the presence of a female instructor) and grades within a sample of 11,958 STEM‐interested undergraduates enrolled in 8686 different STEM courses at 20 colleges and universities. Female student representation within a course predicted greater academic achievement in STEM for all students, and these findings were generally stronger among female students than male students. Female students also consistently benefitted more than male students from having a female STEM instructor. These findings were largely similar across a range of student and course characteristics and were robust to different analytic approaches; a notable exception was that female student representation had particularly favorable outcomes for female students (relative to male students) within mathematics/statistics and computer science courses.
Americans have been gaining weight in recent decades, prompting widespread concern about the health implications of this change. Governments, health practitioners, and the general public all want to ...know: What is the best way to reduce the health risks associated with higher body weight? The dominant weight‐loss solution to this “obesity problem” encourages individuals to lose weight through behavior change. This solution rests on the assumptions that higher body weight causes health problems, that permanent weight loss is attainable, and that weight loss improves health. But comprehensive reviews of the scientific evidence find mixed, weak, and sometimes contradictory evidence for these premises. We suggest that a different solution to the “obesity problem” is needed – a solution that acknowledges both the multifaceted nature of health and the complex interaction between person and situation that characterizes the connection between weight and health. Thus, we use the lens of social psychological science to propose an alternative, well‐being solution to the “obesity problem”. This solution has the potential to improve health by encouraging eating and exercising for optimal health rather than weight loss, by developing interventions to reduce weight stigma and discrimination, and by helping higher body‐weight people cope with the stress of stigma and discrimination.
Social identity threat is the notion that one of a person's many social identities may be at risk of being devalued in a particular context (
C. M. Steele, S. J. Spencer, & J. Aronson, 2002
). The ...authors suggest that in domains in which women are already negatively stereotyped, interacting with a sexist man can trigger social identity threat, undermining women's performance. In Study 1, male engineering students who scored highly on a subtle measure of sexism behaved in a dominant and sexually interested way toward an ostensible female classmate. In Studies 2 and 3, female engineering students who interacted with such sexist men, or with confederates trained to behave in the same way, performed worse on an engineering test than did women who interacted with nonsexist men. Study 4 replicated this finding and showed that women's underperformance did not extend to an English test, an area in which women are not negatively stereotyped. Study 5 showed that interacting with sexist men leads women to suppress concerns about gender stereotypes, an established mechanism of stereotype threat. Discussion addresses implications for social identity threat and for women's performance in school and at work.
A promising way to mitigate inequality is by addressing students' worries about belonging. But where and with whom is this social-belonging intervention effective? Here we report a team-science ...randomized controlled experiment with 26,911 students at 22 diverse institutions. Results showed that the social-belonging intervention, administered online before college (in under 30 minutes), increased the rate at which students completed the first year as full-time students, especially among students in groups that had historically progressed at lower rates. The college context also mattered: The intervention was effective only when students' groups were afforded opportunities to belong. This study develops methods for understanding how student identities and contexts interact with interventions. It also shows that a low-cost, scalable intervention generalizes its effects to 749 4-year institutions in the United States.
Self-affirmation interventions, in which people write about personal values, show promise as a technique to help people cope with psychological threat. However, recent research shows that awareness ...of self-affirmation effects undermines them. We hypothesized that awareness attenuates self-affirmation effects only when completion of the affirmation is externally imposed, rather than personally chosen. In two experiments, self-affirmation effects reemerged when “affirmation-aware” participants were given a choice about either whether to affirm or not (Study 1) or simply which value to write about (Study 2). These results suggest that people can learn to actively apply self-affirmation as a tool for coping with everyday threats.
► We examined whether self-affirmation can aid coping with threat if users are aware of its function. ► As in prior research, being told about affirmation's benefits and then required to affirm negated the benefits. ► However, choosing to self-affirm after learning about the benefits restored them. ► This occurred even when the “choice” was merely incidental. ► Suggests that people can be taught to self-affirm in their everyday lives.
Chronically insecure individuals often behave in ways that result in the very social rejection that they most fear. We predicted that this typical self-fulfilling prophecy is not immutable. ...Self-affirmation may improve insecure individuals' relational security, and this improvement may allow them to express more welcoming social behavior. In a longitudinal experiment, a 15-min self-affirmation improved both the relational security and experimenter-rated social behavior of insecure participants up to 4 weeks after the initial intervention. Moreover, the extent to which self-affirmation improved insecure participants' relational security at 4 weeks predicted additional improvements in social behavior another 4 weeks after that. Our finding that insecure participants continued to reap the social benefits of self-affirmation up to 8 weeks after the initial intervention demonstrates that it is indeed possible to rewrite the self-fulfilling prophecy of social rejection.
People are frequently dissatisfied with their body weight. Messages alleging that lower weight is esthetically preferable, healthier, and achievable likely trigger chronic self‐integrity threat, the ...sense that one's personal adequacy is in doubt. We examined whether self‐integrity threat, which creates stress and pressure to restore self‐integrity, contributes to the challenges of weight and behavior change. Weight‐dissatisfied women completed in‐lab tasks including a values affirmation manipulation and two‐month follow‐up. Affirmed women lost weight relative to controls, replicating previous research. Effects were primarily among those with higher initial body masses. Affirmed higher‐weighted women also ate more healthful foods compared to unhealthful foods in self‐reports and observation. Affirmed participants reported increased exercise, and an exploratory measure showed that their cortisol awakening responses synchronized with their coping needs, suggesting more adaptive physiological function. Results suggest that self‐integrity threat is an under‐recognized barrier to change, and reducing it can support healthy changes.
Girls and women face persistent negative stereotyping within STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). This field intervention was designed to improve boys' perceptions of girls' STEM ...ability. Boys (N = 667; mostly White and East Asian) aged 9–15 years in Canadian STEM summer camps (2017–2019) had an intervention or control conversation with trained camp staff. The intervention was a multi‐stage persuasive appeal: a values affirmation, an illustration of girls' ability in STEM, a personalized anecdote, and reflection. Control participants discussed general camp experiences. Boys who received the intervention (vs. control) had more positive perceptions of girls' STEM ability, d = 0.23, an effect stronger among younger boys. These findings highlight the importance of engaging elementary‐school‐aged boys to make STEM climates more inclusive.
Students who speak English as a second language (ESL) are underserved and underrepresented in postsecondary science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. To date, most existing research ...with ESL students in higher education is qualitative. Drawing from this important body of work, we investigate the impact of a social-belonging intervention on anticipated changes in belonging, STEM GPA, and proportion of STEM credits obtained in students' first semester and first year of college. Using data from more than 12,000 STEM-interested students at 19 universities, results revealed that the intervention increased ESL students' anticipated sense of belonging and three of the four academic outcomes. Moreover, anticipated changes in belonging mediated the intervention's effects on these academic outcomes. Robustness checks revealed that ESL effects persisted even when controlling for other identities correlated with ESL status. Overall, results suggest that anticipated belonging is an understudied barrier to creating a multilingual and diverse STEM workforce.
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