This article advances a theory of incivility as a veiled manifestation of sexism and racism in organizations. To support this argument, I draw from social psychological research on modern discrimination. The result is a multilevel model of selective incivility, with determinants at the level of the person, organization, and society. Selective incivility could be one mechanism by which gender and racial disparities persist in American organizations, despite concerted efforts to eradicate bias. I discuss scientific and practical implications.

https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/lilia-cortina-lab/cortina.amr2008.pdf

Unseen Injustice: Incivility as Modern Discrimination in Organizations

As our nation's need for engineering professionals grows, educators and industry leaders are increasingly becoming concerned with how to attract women to this traditionally male career path. Self-efficacy has been shown to be related to positive outcomes in studying and pursuing careers in non-traditional fields. This paper describes the results of two years of engineering self-efficacy data collected from women engineering students at five institutions across the U.S. This study adds to the growing body of self-efficacy literature via its multi-year, multi-institution design and helps to clarify the impact of the engineering curriculum on self-efficacy. Results indicate that while women students show positive progress on some self-efficacy and related subscales, they show a significant decrease on feelings of inclusion from the first to second measurement period and further suggest a relationship between ethnicity and feelings of inclusion. Additionally, correlations show that self-efficacy is related to women students' plans to persist in this predominantly male discipline.

Women Engineering Students and Self‐Efficacy: A Multi‐Year, Multi‐Institution Study of Women Engineering Student Self‐Efficacy

Background

As estimates continue to indicate a growing demand for engineering professionals, retention in engineering remains an issue. Thus, the engineering education community remains concerned about students who leave engineering and must work to identify the factors that influence those students’ decisions.



Purpose (Hypothesis)

Our purpose was to identify a set of factors describing the experiences of students’ in a college of engineering that are strong influences on decisions to leave and study how those factors are related to both predictor variables (e.g., high school preparation) and future behaviors (e.g., new major chosen).



Design/Method

We solicited survey data from students who had recently transferred out of a large engineering college. We conducted exploratory factor analysis to determine the main factors for leaving engineering and then used these factors to answer the research questions.



Results

Results indicate that both academic (e.g., curriculum difficulty and poor teaching and advising) and a non-academic factor (lack of belonging in engineering) contribute to students’ decisions to leave engineering. We did find differences for some factors between majority and non-majority students; however, there were no gender differences.



Conclusions

Both academic and non-academic factors contribute to students’ decisions to leave engineering; however, our sample indicated the non-academic factors may be a stronger influence. Implications for educators focus on addressing both academic and the belonging factor and include examining pedagogical activities that may be less welcoming to a wide variety of student groups, providing opportunities for meaningful faculty interaction and other activities designed to support students pursuing engineering degrees.

Leaving Engineering: A Multi‐Year Single Institution Study

Women who have not yet entered science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields underestimate how well they will perform in those fields (e.g., Correll, 2001; Meece, Parsons, Kaczala, & Goff, 1982). It is commonly assumed that female role models improve women’s beliefs that they can be successful in STEM. The current work tests this assumption. Two experiments varied role model gender and whether role models embody computer science stereotypes. Role model gender had no effect on success beliefs. However, women who interacted with nonstereotypical role models believed they would be more successful in computer science than those who interacted with stereotypical role models. Differences in women’s success beliefs were mediated by their perceived dissimilarity from stereotypical role models. When attempting to convey to women that they can be successful in STEM fields, role model gender may be less important than the extent to which role models embody current STEM stereotypes.

/pdf/do-female-and-male-role-models-who-embody-stem-stereotypes-1kcg964o4v.pdf

Do Female and Male Role Models Who Embody STEM Stereotypes Hinder Women’s Anticipated Success in STEM?:

How powerful is the status quo in determining people's social ideals? The authors propose (a) that people engage in injunctification, that is, a motivated tendency to construe the current status quo as the most desirable and reasonable state of affairs (i.e., as the most representative of how things should be); (b) that this tendency is driven, at least in part, by people's desire to justify their sociopolitical systems; and (c) that injunctification has profound implications for the maintenance of inequality and societal change. Four studies, across a variety of domains, provided supportive evidence. When the motivation to justify the sociopolitical system was experimentally heightened, participants injunctified extant (a) political power (Study 1), (b) public funding policies (Study 2), and (c) unequal gender demographics in the political and business spheres (Studies 3 and 4, respectively). It was also demonstrated that this motivated phenomenon increased derogation of those who act counter to the status quo (Study 4). Theoretical implications for system justification theory, stereotype formation, affirmative action, and the maintenance of inequality are discussed.

https://homepage.univie.ac.at/Andreas.Olbrich/konfliktskript7.pdf

Inequality, discrimination, and the power of the status quo: Direct evidence for a motivation to see the way things are as the way they should be.

The authors bring psychological research to bear on an examination of the policy of affirmative action. They argue that data from many studies reveal that affirmative action as a policy has more benefits than costs. Although the majority of pro-affirmative action arguments in the social sciences stress diversity, the authors' argument focuses on issues of merit. The merit-based argument, grounded in empirical studies, concludes that the policy of affirmative action conforms to the American ideal of fairness and is a necessary policy.

Affirmative action. Psychological data and the policy debates.

Using a survey of women science majors, we tested the assumption that women mentors and other women guides help women students pursue the sciences. The survey explicitly distinguished among three types of guides: mentors (who provide psychosocial support), sponsors (who provide instrumental support), and role models (who act as examples) encountered before and during college. We found that over 90% of the women had a guide of one type or another, that mentors were most influential to women's pursuit of science, and that guides during college were more influential than guides prior to college. Participants reported having more female than male guides overall, but that some of the most influential guides were men.

The perceived importance of developmental relationships on women undergraduates' pursuit of science

This study tested a broad array of determinants of smoking grounded in general social psychological theories, as well as personality and social development theories. Using data from 2,004 middle school students, all proximal and distal determinants significantly predicted smoking in the hypothesized direction. Further, hierarchical logistic regressions showed that intention to smoke, positive and negative attitudes toward smoking, impediments to smoking, self-efficacy to resist smoking, parent norms, and academic success most strongly predicted current smoking. Hierarchical linear regressions suggested that parental relatedness, maladaptive coping strategies, depression, and low academic aspirations most strongly predicted susceptibility to smoking for those who had not yet smoked a cigarette. Global expectancies were the strongest predictor of susceptibility in low socioeconomic status students. These findings may guide the development of future theorybased interventions that produce the greatest reductions in youth smoking.

Theory-Based Determinants of Youth Smoking: A Multiple Influence Approach1

Values and Science: Reply.

The One Health approach asserts that the health of animals and people is closely connected. Under this approach, the CDC and AVMA work globally to attain optimal health outcomes for both animals and humans. One facet of optimal health involves access to safe and effective anesthetics and analgesics. The anesthetic and analgesic drug ketamine possesses unique properties that make it particularly important for both veterinary and human patients in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). These properties include its portability and stability, low cost, ease of administration, and wide therapeutic margin. China advocates regularly to the United Nations for global scheduling of ketamine as a controlled substance. However, this would disproportionately restrict access to ketamine in LMICs, imposing bioethical challenges related to animal patients, human patients, and communities. In alignment with the One Health vision, opposing global scheduling of ketamine in LMICs creates a unique opportunity for collaboration between veterinarians and physicians in LMICs and high-income countries to prevent these bioethical challenges.

The One Health vision requires veterinarians and physicians to collaborate to prevent bioethical challenges created by restricted access to ketamine in low- and middle-income countries.

Roberta A. Downing

Papers

Affirmative action. Psychological data and the policy debates.

The perceived importance of developmental relationships on women undergraduates' pursuit of science

Theory-Based Determinants of Youth Smoking: A Multiple Influence Approach1

Values and Science: Reply.

The One Health vision requires veterinarians and physicians to collaborate to prevent bioethical challenges created by restricted access to ketamine in low- and middle-income countries.