Sense of belonging to math-one's feelings of membership and acceptance in the math domain-was established as a new and an important factor in the representation gap between males and females in math. First, a new scale of sense of belonging to math was created and validated, and was found to predict unique variance in college students' intent to pursue math in the future (Studies 1-2). Second, in a longitudinal study of calculus students (Study 3), students' perceptions of 2 factors in their math environment-the message that math ability is a fixed trait and the stereotype that women have less of this ability than men-worked together to erode women's, but not men's, sense of belonging in math. Their lowered sense of belonging, in turn, mediated women's desire to pursue math in the future and their math grades. Interestingly, the message that math ability could be acquired protected women from negative stereotypes, allowing them to maintain a high sense of belonging in math and the intention to pursue math in the future.

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In this review, we highlight the importance of understanding diversity ideologies, or people's beliefs and practices regarding diversity, for social psychological research on intergroup relations. This review focuses on two diversity ideologies, colorblindness and multiculturalism, and their impact on core issues related to intergroup conflict, such as stereotypes, prejudice, attitudes toward inequality, interracial interactions, and disparate outcomes between minority and majority group members. We close by highlighting some of the areas in which future research has the potential to be especially illuminating. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The United States must improve its students' educational achievement. Race, gender, and social class gaps persist, and, overall, U.S. students rank poorly among peers globally. Scientific research shows that students' psychology-their "academic mindsets"-have a critical role in educational achievement. Yet policymakers have not taken full advantage of cost-effective and well-validated mindset interventions. In this article, we present two key academic mindsets. The first, a growth mindset, refers to the belief that intelligence can be developed over time. The second, a belonging mindset, refers to the belief that people like you belong in your school or in a given academic field. Extensive research shows that fostering these mindsets can improve students' motivation; raise grades; and reduce racial, gender, and social class gaps. Of course, mindsets are not a panacea, but with proper implementation they can be an excellent point of entry. We show how policy at all levels (federal, state, and local) can leverage mindsets to lift the nation's educational outcomes.

Building on prior work on rejection sensitivity, we propose a social-cognitive model of gender-based rejection sensitivity (Gender RS) to account for individual differences in how women perceive and cope with gender-based evaluative threats in competitive, historically male institutions. Study 1 develops a measure of Gender RS, defined as anxious expectations of gender-based rejection. Studies 2-5 support the central predictions of the model: Gender RS is associated with increased perceptions of gender-based threats and increased coping by self-silencing--responses that reinforce feelings of alienation and diminished motivation. Study 2 shows that Gender RS is distinct from overall sensitivity to rejection or perceiving the world through the lens of gender. Study 3 shows that Gender RS becomes activated specifically when gender-based rejection is a plausible explanation for negative outcomes. Study 4 provides experimental evidence that Gender RS predicts lower academic self-confidence, greater expectations of bias, and avoidance of opportunities for further help from a weakness-focused expert evaluator. Study 5 tests the Gender RS model in situ, using daily diaries to track women's experiences during the first weeks in a highly competitive law school. Implications for women's coping with the subtle nature of contemporary sexism are discussed as well as the importance of institution-level checks to prevent the costs of gender-based rejection.

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We identify a novel dimension of people's beliefs about intelligence: beliefs about the potential to become highly intelligent. Studies 1-3 found that in U.S. American contexts, people tend to believe that only some people have the potential to become highly intelligent. In contrast, in South Asian Indian contexts, people tend to believe that most people have the potential to become highly intelligent. To examine the implications of these beliefs, Studies 4-6 measured and manipulated Americans' beliefs about the potential for intelligence and found that the belief that everyone can become highly intelligent predicted increased support for policies that distribute resources more equally across advantaged and disadvantaged social groups. These findings suggest that the belief that only some people have the potential to become highly intelligent is a culturally shaped belief, and one that can lead people to oppose policies aimed at redressing social inequality.

The current research investigates people's perceptions of others' lay theories (or mindsets), an understudied construct that we call meta-lay theories. Six studies examine whether underrepresented students' meta-lay theories influence their sense of belonging to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The studies tested whether underrepresented students who perceive their faculty as believing most students have high scientific aptitude (a universal metatheory) would report a stronger sense of belonging to STEM than those who think their faculty believe that not everyone has high scientific aptitude (a nonuniversal metatheory). Women PhD candidates in STEM fields who held universal rather than nonuniversal metatheories felt greater sense of belonging to their field, both when metatheories were measured (Study 1) and manipulated (Study 2). Undergraduates who held more universal metatheories reported a higher sense of belonging to STEM (Studies 3 and 4) and earned higher final course grades (Study 3). Experimental manipulations depicting a professor communicating the universal lay theory eliminated the difference between African American and European American students' attraction to a STEM course (Study 5) and between women and men's sense of belonging to STEM (Study 6). Mini meta-analyses indicated that the universal metatheory increases underrepresented students' sense of belonging to STEM, reduces the extent of social identity threat they experience, and reduces their perception of faculty as endorsing stereotypes. Across different underrepresented groups, types of institutions, areas of STEM, and points in the STEM pipeline, students' metaperceptions of faculty's lay theories about scientific aptitude influence their sense of belonging to STEM. (PsycINFO Database Record