Who chooses a pSTEM academic major? Using social psychology to predict selection and persistence over the freshman year

Many social psychological variables, in addition to knowledge-based factors such as academic preparedness, have been investigated individually as sources of the persistent gender gap in pSTEM (physical science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. The present work tested all of these factors simultaneously and longitudinally, in a sample drawn from an incoming freshman class measured at three timepoints over the course of their first year. One thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine students completed a survey with items assessing eleven social psychological constructs and were asked for permission to obtain institutional data regarding their academic preparedness and choice of academic major before matriculation, after the first semester, and at the end of freshman year. These social psychological and academic variables were used to predict pSTEM major status. Across multiple timepoints, and over and above academic preparedness, greater Math and Science Self-Efficacy, rejection of the stereotype that scientist careers are unsociable in nature, having a pSTEM role model in high school, and lower endorsement of communal goals were consistently related to the selection of a pSTEM major. Students who endorsed entity theories of math and science abilities were also less likely to select a pSTEM over life and social sciences major. As a set, the factors accounted for roughly half of the gender difference in pSTEM major selection. Interventions aimed at reducing the gender gap in pSTEM major selection might do well to focus on these more psychological factors as well as academic ones.     

Relations of Neuroticism and Attentional Control with Symptoms of Anxiety and Aggression in Non-Clinical Children

The present study examined the associations between neuroticism and attentional control and the occurrence of symptoms of psychopathology in children. A large sample of non-clinical children aged 9 to 17 years (N = 409) completed questionnaires measuring neuroticism, attentional control, and symptoms of anxiety and aggression. Results demonstrated that neuroticism was positively associated with symptoms of anxiety and aggression, whereas attentional control was negatively linked to such symptoms. Regression analyses showed that both neuroticism and attentional control accounted for an independent and significant proportion of the variance in children’s anxiety and aggression symptoms. Further, tentative support was found for the notion that neuroticism and attentional control have an interactive effect on symptoms of anxiety and aggression. Results did not show that age had an influence on the emergence of this interaction.     

Hoarding in obsessive-compulsive disorder: results from the OCD Collaborative Genetics Study

Hoarding behavior occurs frequently in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Results from previous studies suggest that individuals with OCD who have hoarding symptoms are clinically different than non-hoarders and may represent a distinct clinical group. In the present study, we compared 235 hoarding to 389 non-hoarding participants, all of whom had OCD, collected in the course of the OCD Collaborative Genetics Study. We found that, compared to non-hoarding individuals, hoarders were more likely to have symmetry obsessions and repeating, counting, and ordering compulsions; poorer insight; more severe illness; difficulty initiating or completing tasks; and indecision. Hoarders had a greater prevalence of social phobia and generalized anxiety disorder. Hoarders also had a greater prevalence of obsessive-compulsive and dependent personality disorders. Five personality traits were independently associated with hoarding: miserliness, preoccupation with details, difficulty making decisions, odd behavior or appearance, and magical thinking. Hoarding and indecision were more prevalent in the relatives of hoarding than of non-hoarding probands. Hoarding in relatives was associated with indecision in probands, independently of proband hoarding status. The findings suggest that hoarding behavior may help differentiate a distinct clinical subgroup of people with OCD and may aggregate in some OCD families. Indecision may be a risk factor for hoarding in these families.     

Fusion or Internalized Homophobia? A Pilot Study of Bowen's Differentiation of Self Hypothesis With Lesbian Couples

Bowen, using the concept of differentiation, hypothesized that the way individuals learn to deal with their relationships with families of origin will influence the way they manage their relationships with their partners. This study surveyed a group of 53 lesbian couples on differentiation of self, internalized homophobia, and relationship satisfaction. We found that lesbian couples were not significantly different in their level of differentiation than random pairs. We also found that there was a positive relationship between differentiation of self and relationship satisfaction and that when considered together, internalized homophobia had the more significant connection to relationship satisfaction than did differentiation of self Implications for therapy are drawn from these findings.     

Self-Assembly, Self-Organization: Nanotechnology and Vitalism

Over the past decades, self-assembly has attracted a lot of research attention and transformed the relations between chemistry, materials science and biology. The paper explores the impact of the current interest in self-assembly techniques on the traditional debate over the nature of life. The first section describes three different research programs of self-assembly in nanotechnology in order to characterize their metaphysical implications: (1) Hybridization (using the building blocks of living systems for making devices and machines) ; (2) Biomimetics (making artifacts mimicking nature); (3) Integration (a composite of the two previous strategies). The second section focused on the elusive boundary between self-assembly and self-organization tries to map out the various positions adopted by the promoters of self-assembly on the issue of vitalism.

Contextual Variation in Automatic Evaluative Bias to Racially-Ambiguous Faces

Three studies examined the implicit evaluative associations activated by racially-ambiguous Black-White faces. In the context of both Black and White faces, Study 1 revealed a graded pattern of bias against racially-ambiguous faces that was weaker than the bias to Black faces but stronger than that to White faces. Study 2 showed that significant bias was present when racially-ambiguous faces appeared in the context of only White faces, but not in the context of only Black faces. Study 3 demonstrated that context produces perceptual contrast effects on racial-prototypicality judgments. Racially-ambiguous faces were perceived as more prototypically Black in a White-only than mixed-race context, and less prototypically Black in a Black-only context. Conversely, they were seen as more prototypically White in a Black-only than mixed context, and less prototypically White in a White-only context. The studies suggest that both race-related featural properties within a face (i.e., racial ambiguity) and external contextual factors affect automatic evaluative associations.