According to system justification theory, people are motivated to preserve the belief that existing social arrangements are fair, legitimate, and justifiable (Jost & Banaji, 1994). The strongest form of this hypothesis, which draws on the logic of cognitive dissonance theory, holds that people who are most disadvantaged by the status quo would have the greatest psychological need to reduce ideological dissonance and would therefore be most likely to support, defend, and justify existing social systems, authorities, and outcomes. Variations on this hypothesis were tested in four U.S. national survey studies. We found that: (a) low income respondents and African Americans were more likely than others to support limitations on the rights of citizens and media representatives to criticize the government (b) low income Latinos were more likely to trust in U.S. government officials and to believe that "the government is run for the benefit of all" than were high income Latinos, (c) Southerners in the U.S. were more likely to endorse meritocratic belief systems than were Northerners and poor and Southern African Americans were more likely to subscribe to meritocratic ideologies than were African Americans who were more affluent and from the North, (d) low income respondents and African Americans were more likely than others to believe that economic inequality is legitimate and necessary, and (e) stronger endorsement of meritocratic ideology was associated with greater satisfaction with one's own economic situation. Taken together, these findings provide support for the dissonance-based argument that people who suffer the most from a given state of affairs are paradoxically the least likely to question, challenge, reject, or change it. Implications for theories of system justification, cognitive dissonance, and social change are also discussed.

Social Inequality and the Reduction of Ideological Dissonance on Behalf of the System: Evidence of Enhanced System Justification among the Disadvantaged

A web-based survey of members of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science tested a model that proposed that the effects of science support experiences on commitment to science careers would be mediated by science self-efficacy and identity as a scientist. A sample of 327 undergraduates and 338 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows described their science support experiences (research experience, mentoring, and community involvement); psychological variables (science self-efficacy, leadership/teamwork self-efficacy, and identity as a scientist); and commitment to pursue a career in scientific research. Structural equation model analyses supported our predictions. Among the undergraduates, science (but not leadership/teamwork), self-efficacy, and identity as a scientist fully mediated the effects of science support experiences and were strong predictors of commitment. Results for the graduate/postdoctoral sample revealed a very similar pattern of results, with the added finding that all three psychological mediators, including leadership/teamwork self-efficacy, predicted commitment.

The role of efficacy and identity in science career commitment among underrepresented minority students

Scientific and engineering innovation is vital for American competitiveness, quality of life, and national security. However, too few American students, especially women, pursue these fields. Although this problem has attracted enormous attention, rigorously tested interventions outside artificial laboratory settings are quite rare. To address this gap, we conducted a longitudinal field experiment investigating the effect of peer mentoring on women's experiences and retention in engineering during college transition, assessing its impact for 1 y while mentoring was active, and an additional 1 y after mentoring had ended. Incoming women engineering students (n = 150) were randomly assigned to female or male peer mentors or no mentors for 1 y. Their experiences were assessed multiple times during the intervention year and 1-y postintervention. Female (but not male) mentors protected women's belonging in engineering, self-efficacy, motivation, retention in engineering majors, and postcollege engineering aspirations. Counter to common assumptions, better engineering grades were not associated with more retention or career aspirations in engineering in the first year of college. Notably, increased belonging and self-efficacy were significantly associated with more retention and career aspirations. The benefits of peer mentoring endured long after the intervention had ended, inoculating women for the first 2 y of college-the window of greatest attrition from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors. Thus, same-gender peer mentoring for a short period during developmental transition points promotes women's success and retention in engineering, yielding dividends over time.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/114/23/5964.full.pdf

Female peer mentors early in college increase women’s positive academic experiences and retention in engineering

Affirmative action is a controversial and often poorly understood policy. It is also a policy that has been widely studied by social scientists. In this review, we outline how affirmative action operates in employment and education settings and consider the major points of controversy. In addition, we detail the contributions of psychologists and other social scientists in helping to demonstrate why affirmative action is needed; how it can have unintended negative consequences; and how affirmative action programs can be most successful. We also review how psychologists have examined variations in people's attitudes toward affirmative action, in part as a means for testing different theories of social behavior.

/pdf/understanding-affirmative-action-1f2tfedjb0.pdf

Understanding affirmative action

Faculty members play a key role in the identification and training of the next generation of scientific talent. In the face of the need to advance and diversify the scientific workforce, we examine whether and how specific institutional contexts shape student interactions with faculty. We conducted a mixed methods study to understand institutional contextual differences in the experiences of aspiring scientists. Data from a qualitative five-campus case study and a quantitative longitudinal study of students from over 117 higher education institutions were analyzed to determine how aspiring scientists interact with faculty and gain access to resources that will help them achieve their educational goals. Findings indicate that important structural differences exist between institutions in shaping students’ interactions with faculty. For example, students at more selective institutions typically have less frequent, less personal interactions with faculty whereas Black students at HBCUs report having more support and frequent interactions with faculty.

/pdf/we-do-science-here-underrepresented-students-interactions-10jaig0fr4.pdf

"We Do Science Here": Underrepresented Students' Interactions with Faculty in Different College Contexts.

This study examined the extent to which science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students reported having had mentors of their own race and gender and the extent to which they have adopted the idea that matching by race and gender matters. The study also documented the effects of race and gender matching on three academic outcomes, self-reported grade point average, efficacy, and confidence, based on data collected from 1,013 undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral scholars actively participating in MentorNet's online community. Analyses indicated that having a mentor of one's own gender or race was felt to be important by many students, especially women and students of Color. Students who had a mentor of their own gender or race reported receiving more help, but matching by race or gender did not affect academic outcomes. Key findings are discussed in terms of implications for future research and mentoring in the STEM fields.

Matching by Race and Gender in Mentoring Relationships: Keeping our Eyes on the Prize

http://psycnet.apa.org/books/11681/006.pdf

From Kansas to Michigan: The path from desegregation to diversity.

In 1997, the then-president of the University of Michigan, Lee Bollinger, was named as a defendant in two lawsuits brought in federal district court. The College of Literature, Science and Arts had denied admission to Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hammacher, two White residents of Michigan. The applicants claimed that the University’s race-sensitive admissions policy had deprived them of their constitutional and statutory rights. Meanwhile, the University of Michigan Law School had denied admission to another White applicant, Barbara Grutter, and she too claimed reverse discrimination. How could the University defend itself? American jurisprudence is built around the concept of stare decisis: Precedent matters. It is helpful to an organization to be able to argue that its behaviors conform to and promote principles that the Court has explicitly endorsed in prior rulings. In American courts of law, as in the court of public opinion, a successful defense also requires that the defendant construct a cogent and coherent story about its behaviors and intentions. Increasingly, compelling stories must show that they are consistent not only with prevailing moral values but also with accepted social scientific data. Ever since the Supreme Court acknowledged in Brown v. Board of Education that social scientific studies have a legitimate role to play in its reasoning, lawyers have increasingly, and with varying degrees of success, called on social scientists to provide expert testimony. Social scientific data have made their way into public debates about policy and about law as well (Smith & Crosby, in press). Three questions thus faced the University of Michigan as it constructed a defense of race-sensitive admissions policies. First, could it articulate a coherent story to describe both its intentions and its actions? Second, could it link that story to established legal principles? Third, could it bring forward social scientific data to support its claims and could it refute social scientific data put forward by the other side? At least two different avenues lay open to the University as it set about to find answers and to construct a defense (Lehman, 2004; Stohr, 2004). It could decide to follow the road that led to the 1954 Brown victory for civil rights, emphasizing that, in view of the present consequences of historical discrimination,

Faye J. Crosby

Papers

Matching by Race and Gender in Mentoring Relationships: Keeping our Eyes on the Prize

From Kansas to Michigan: The path from desegregation to diversity.

The University of Michigan Cases: Social Scientific Studies of Diversity and Fairness