The goal congruity perspective posits that 2 distinct social cognitions predict attraction to science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) fields. First, individuals may particularly value communal goals (e.g., working with or helping others), due to either chronic individual differences or the salience of these goals in particular contexts. Second, individuals hold beliefs about the activities that facilitate or impede these goals, or goal affordance stereotypes. Women's tendency to endorse communal goals more highly than do men, along with consensual stereotypes that STEM careers impede communal goals, intersect to produce disinterest in STEM careers. We provide evidence for the foundational predictions that gender differences emerge primarily on communal rather than agentic goals (Studies 1a and 3) and that goal affordance stereotypes reflect beliefs that STEM careers are relatively dissociated from communal goals (Studies 1b and 1c). Most critically, we provide causal evidence that activated communal goals decrease interest in STEM fields (Study 2) and that the potential for a STEM career to afford communal goals elicits greater positivity (Study 3). These studies thus provide a novel demonstration that understanding communal goals and goal affordance stereotypes can lend insight into attitudes toward STEM pursuits.

Background Although the three vaccines against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) that have received emergency use authorization in the United States are highly effective, breakthrough infections are occurring. Data are needed on the serial use of homologous boosters (same as the primary vaccine) and heterologous boosters (different from the primary vaccine) in fully vaccinated recipients. Methods In this phase 1–2, open-label clinical trial conducted at 10 sites in the United States, adults who had completed a Covid-19 vaccine regimen at least 12 weeks earlier and had no reported history of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection received a booster injection with one of three vaccines: mRNA-1273 (Moderna) at a dose of 100 μg, Ad26.COV2.S (Johnson & Johnson–Janssen) at a dose of 5×10 10 virus particles, or BNT162b2 (Pfizer–BioNTech) at a dose of 30 μg. The primary end points were safety, reactogenicity, and humoral immunogenicity on trial days 15 and 29. Results Of the 458 participants who were enrolled in the trial, 154 received mRNA-1273, 150 received Ad26.COV2.S, and 153 received BNT162b2 as booster vaccines; 1 participant did not receive the assigned vaccine. Reactogenicity was similar to that reported for the primary series. More than half the recipients reported having injection-site pain, malaise, headache, or myalgia. For all combinations, antibody neutralizing titers against a SARS-CoV-2 D614G pseudovirus increased by a factor of 4 to 73, and binding titers increased by a factor of 5 to 55. Homologous boosters increased neutralizing antibody titers by a factor of 4 to 20, whereas heterologous boosters increased titers by a factor of 6 to 73. Spike-specific T-cell responses increased in all but the homologous Ad26.COV2.S-boosted subgroup. CD8+ T-cell levels were more durable in the Ad26.COV2.S-primed recipients, and heterologous boosting with the Ad26.COV2.S vaccine substantially increased spike-specific CD8+ T cells in the mRNA vaccine recipients. Conclusions Homologous and heterologous booster vaccines had an acceptable safety profile and were immunogenic in adults who had completed a primary Covid-19 vaccine regimen at least 12 weeks earlier. (Funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; DMID 21-0012 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04889209 .)

Although women have nearly attained equality with men in several formerly male-dominated fields, they remain underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We argue that one important reason for this discrepancy is that STEM careers are perceived as less likely than careers in other fields to fulfill communal goals (e.g., working with or helping other people). Such perceptions might disproportionately affect women's career decisions, because women tend to endorse communal goals more than men. As predicted, we found that STEM careers, relative to other careers, were perceived to impede communal goals. Moreover, communal-goal endorsement negatively predicted interest in STEM careers, even when controlling for past experience and self-efficacy in science and mathematics. Understanding how communal goals influence people's interest in STEM fields thus provides a new perspective on the issue of women's representation in STEM careers.

The goal congruity perspective provides a theoretical framework to understand how motivational processes influence and are influenced by social roles. In particular, we invoke this framework to understand communal goal processes as proximal motivators of decisions to engage in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). STEM fields are not perceived as affording communal opportunities to work with or help others, and understanding these perceived goal affordances can inform knowledge about differences between (a) STEM and other career pathways and (b) women's and men's choices. We review the patterning of gender disparities in STEM that leads to a focus on communal goal congruity (Part I), provide evidence for the foundational logic of the perspective (Part II), and explore the implications for research and policy (Part III). Understanding and transmitting the opportunities for communal goal pursuit within STEM can reap widespread benefits for broadening and deepening participation.

Vaccines, when available, will likely become our best tool to control the COVID-19 pandemic. Even in the most optimistic scenarios, vaccine shortages will likely occur. Using an age-stratified mathematical model paired with optimization algorithms, we determined optimal vaccine allocation for four different metrics (deaths, symptomatic infections, and maximum non-ICU and ICU hospitalizations) under many scenarios. We find that a vaccine with effectiveness ≥50% would be enough to substantially mitigate the ongoing pandemic, provided that a high percentage of the population is optimally vaccinated. When minimizing deaths, we find that for low vaccine effectiveness, irrespective of vaccination coverage, it is optimal to allocate vaccine to high-risk (older) age groups first. In contrast, for higher vaccine effectiveness, there is a switch to allocate vaccine to high-transmission (younger) age groups first for high vaccination coverage. While there are other societal and ethical considerations, this work can provide an evidence-based rationale for vaccine prioritization.

The university participant pool is a key resource for behavioral research, and data quality is believed to vary over the course of the academic semester. This crowdsourced project examined time of semester variation in 10 known effects, 10 individual differences, and 3 data quality indicators over the course of the academic semester in 20 participant pools (N = 2,696) and with an online sample (N = 737). Weak time of semester effects were observed on data quality indicators, participant sex, and a few individual differences-conscientiousness, mood, and stress. However, there was little evidence for time of semester qualifying experimental or correlational effects. The generality of this evidence is unknown because only a subset of the tested effects demonstrated evidence for the original result in the whole sample. Mean characteristics of pool samples change slightly during the semester, but these data suggest that those changes are mostly irrelevant for detecting effects. Word count = 151Keywords: social psychology; cognitive psychology; replication; participant pool; individual differences; sampling effects; situational effects 4 Many Labs 3: Evaluating participant pool quality across the academic semester via replication University participant pools provide access to participants for a great deal of published behavioral research. The typical participant pool consists of undergraduates enrolled in introductory psychology courses that require students to complete some number of experiments over the course of the academic semester. Common variations might include using other courses to recruit participants or making study participation an option for extra credit rather than a pedagogical requirement. Research-intensive universities often have a highly organized participant pool with a participant management system for signing up for studies and assigning credit. Smaller or teaching-oriented institutions often have more informal participant pools that are organized ad hoc each semester or for an individual class.To avoid selection bias based on study content, most participant pools have procedures to avoid disclosing the content or purpose of individual studies during the sign-up process.However, students are usually free to choose the time during the semester that they sign up to complete the studies. This may introduce a selection bias in which data collection on different dates occurs with different kinds of participants, or in different situational circumstances (e.g., the carefree semester beginning versus the exam-stressed semester end).If participant characteristics differ across time during the academic semester, then the results of studies may be moderated by the time at which data collection occurs. Indeed, among behavioral researchers there are widespread intuitions, superstitions, and anecdotes about the "best" time to collect data in order to minimize error and maximize power. It is common, for example, to hear stories of an effect being obtained in the first part of the semester that then "d...

Many Labs 3 is a crowdsourced project that systematically evaluated time-of-semester effects across many participant pools. See the Wiki for a table of contents of files and to download the manuscript.

An experiment is reported in which the attribution of gender to isolated facial features and to faces whose features have been interchanged with those of a face of the opposite gender has been examined. Sixteen male faces were averaged to create a prototype male face and sixteen female faces averaged to create a prototype female face. The prototypes were then masked to exclude ears, neck, hair, and hairline. Individual features (brows, eyes, nose, mouth, and chin) and pairs of features (brows & eyes, eyes & nose, nose & mouth, mouth & chin) from the prototypes were then presented in isolation for classification according to their perceived gender. The results showed that, for the faces used, the brows & eyes, brows alone, eyes alone, the whole jaw, the chin, the nose & mouth, the mouth alone (in descending order), ie all the features except the nose, carried some information about gender when they were seen in isolation. In the second part of the experiment different features from one prototype face were grafted into the prototype of the opposite gender and the resulting composite faces classified by their perceived gender. The results of this feature substitution showed the jaw, brows & eyes, chin, and brows (in descending order) effecting significant change in perceived gender. The difference in gender information carried by feature(s) when they were viewed in isolation from that when they were substituted for each other is attributed to the role of configuration in the perception of the gender of a face.