In this talk, I will review some of our recent work investigating how communal goals influence decisions to enter STEM careers. The goal congruity perspective posits that women in particular may select out of STEM fields because of expectations that these careers will not allow them to pursue valued goals. In short, women tend to highly value communal goals (i.e., working with or helping others), and STEM fields are widely perceived as impeding the pursuit of these communal goals. I'll review some of the evidence for the fundamental assumptions of the goal congruity perspective, as well as highlight some of the new work in our lab that examines different sources of these  goal affordance stereotypes.

Biography:

Amanda Diekman received her B.A. degree from Kenyon College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in social psychology from Northwestern University. Before joining the faculty at Miami University, she served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychological Science at Purdue University. Diekman's research investigates how stereotypes stem from and reinforce the social structure, with a particular emphasis on change and stability over time. Her recent work develops the goal congruity explanation of women's decisions about careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Her NSF-funded program of research combines descriptive and experimental methods to understand how communal goal processes influence recruitment and retention in STEM. Diekman is currently an Associate Editor for Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and formerly for Basic and Applied Social Psychology. Within the Department of Psychology, she has coordinated the departmental honors sequence, headed the social psychology program, and directed the Center for Psychological Inquiry.