Working Together to Increase STEM Interest: Communal Experience and Its Effect on the Malleability of STEM Beliefs and Attitudes

Individuals may avoid science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) because these fields are perceived as incompatible with communal goals, according to the goal congruity model.The present research explores the malleability of such goal affordance stereotypes and its implications for STEM attitudes.In addition, this research examined how individuals with different experiences in STEM respond to STEM-related messages.Stereotypes and attitudes were malleable at the explicit but not implicit level and individuals with low experience in STEM showed the most malleability in attitudes.Finally, different sources of communal experience were explored.Stereotypes and attitudes were influenced by the experimentallyinduced communal framing of STEM and by naturally-occurring communal experience of participants' own histories.A path analysis revealed that these sources of communal experience partially mediated the relationship between communal goal affordances and STEM interest.Implications for goal congruity theory and for interventions aimed at increasing participation in STEM are discussed.