When and why is faculty mentorship effective for underrepresented students in STEM? A multicampus quasi-experiment.

OBJECTIVES: Faculty mentorship can be one solution to addressing the participation and persistence gaps between underrepresented groups (URGs) and overrepresented group members in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying effective STEM faculty mentorship. The present study (a) investigates if faculty mentorship impacts STEM identity, attitudes, belonging, and self-efficacy; (b) compares students' perceptions of women versus men faculty mentorship support functions; and (c) uncovers the mentorship support mechanisms underlying impactful faculty mentorship. METHOD: The present research sampled ethnic-racial minority URG undergraduate students pursuing STEM majors across eight institutions (N = 362; age = 24.85; 36.6% Latinx, 30.6% Black, and 4.6% multiracial; 60.1% women). The study's overall quasi-experimental design adopted a one-factor two-level (faculty mentorship status: yes, no) between-subjects design. Among the participants who reported having a faculty mentor, we also examined faculty mentor gender (women vs. men) as a between-subjects variable. RESULTS: Faculty mentorship had a positive impact on URG students' STEM identity, attitudes, belonging, and self-efficacy. Furthermore, mentorship support functions indirectly predicted identity, attitudes, belonging, and self-efficacy among URG mentees who had women compared to men faculty mentors. CONCLUSIONS: Implications for how STEM faculty, regardless of their gender identity, can be effective mentors to URG students are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Heterosexual People's Reactions to Same-Sex Romantic or Sexual Overtures: The Role of Attitudes About Sexual Orientation and Gender.

Why do some heterosexual people react in a negative manner when pondering or experiencing romantic or sexual overtures from persons of their same-sex, whereas other heterosexual people react more positively? To answer this question, this cross-sectional, correlational study examined individual difference predictors of heterosexual people's responses to romantic or sexual overtures from same-sex persons. Our sample comprised 306 men and 307 women, ages 18-35 years, who were recruited from Mechanical Turk and identified as cisgender and heterosexual. Our hypotheses were premised on the theoretical construct of reactive group distinctiveness. Specifically, we explored predictors of heterosexual individuals' negative perceptions of same-sex overtures. We found that more negative reactions to same-sex overtures were uniquely predicted by old-fashioned sexual prejudice, modern sexual prejudice, and desire to be perceived as gender conforming, via the mediators of social distance from same-sex sexual minority individuals and desire to be perceived as heterosexual. Gender moderated these relationships inconsistently. These findings indicate that two classes of individual differences-sexual prejudice and gender conforming reputation desire-are uniquely associated with heterosexual persons' reactions to overtures from same-sex persons. We explain how these findings evidence the process of reactive group distinctiveness.

A dangerous boomerang: Injunctive norms, hostile sexist attitudes, and male-to-female sexual aggression.

This study examined the interactive effects of injunctive norm exposure and hostile and benevolent sexist attitudes on men's sexually aggressive responses during a behavioral analogue paradigm in which they interacted online with a bogus female partner. Heterosexual adult men (n = 201), recruited from an online sample, read fictional information regarding other men's approval of misogynistic, paternalistic, or egalitarian treatment of women, or non-gender-relevant control information. Through a media preference survey, men then learned that their female partner disliked sexual content in films, after which they had an opportunity to send her up to 120 sec' worth of either a sexually explicit or nonsexual film clip. Validating the online sexual aggression paradigm, men with a 1-year history of sexual assault exhibited more sexually aggressive responding during the film selection paradigm. Moreover, exposure to injunctive norm information produced a boomerang effect, such that men high in hostile sexist attitudes showed an increase in sexual aggression when confronted with paternalism and gender equality norms. Conversely, exposure to paternalism and gender equality norms suppressed the otherwise protective function of high benevolent sexism in reducing men's sexually aggressive tendencies. The implications of these results for social norms interventions are discussed.