Current higher education is characterized by a proliferation of distance education programs and by an increasing inclusion of nontraditional students. In this study we investigated whether and to what extent nontraditional students are particularly at risk for attrition (vs. graduating) from distance education programs. We conducted a secondary analysis of cross-sectional institutional surveys deployed in the context of a public German distance teaching university among university graduates and dropouts (N = 4,599). Using binary-logistic multiple regression analyses, we predicted the likelihood of program attrition by students' membership in sociodemographic groups, their goal orientations, and the corresponding interactions. Results revealed higher risks to drop out from university for female, migrant, and fully-employed students, but lower risks for older and parent students. A higher importance of career development or personal development goals related to a lower risk for attrition. Moreover, data also provide evidence that among some student groups the likelihood to graduate (or to drop out) significantly depends on students' goal orientations. Results were robust across different academic faculties and were complemented by an analysis of dropout reasons. The practical implications of our findings are discussed with regard to designing equitable distance learning environments that value human diversity and quality of opportunity.

Building on an integration of research findings on proactive intergroup behavior from multiple fields of inquiry (biology, paleoanthropology, social psychology) as well as research on the HEXACO personality framework, a prospective study among adolescents investigated the relations between personality traits and xenophile and xenophobic orientations (Total N = 455, 219 males, M age = 17.66 years). Path models corroborate that xenophile orientations and xenophobic orientations were predicted by two distinct subsets of major personality traits: High scores in endeavor-related traits (i.e., Openness to Experience, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness) predicted greater xenophile orientations, whereas low scores in altruism/cooperation-related traits (i.e., Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness, and Emotionality) predicted greater xenophobic orientations. Conclusions on the effects of personality traits were complemented by a distinct pattern of gender effects suggesting higher levels of xenophobic orientations among male adolescents and higher levels of xenophile orientations among females. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.In times featuring near daily news of wars and genocide all around the globe, xenophobia seems a human universal. Still, there is also a brighter side of human nature that is frequently overlooked: xenophilia-an attraction to foreign cultures or people that manifests itself in curiosity and benevolent cross-cultural

Public discourse in Western countries on the 2014 Ebola epidemic provided a unique natural opportunity to study the relationship between a disease's sociocultural representation and health policy support. Our main prediction stated that among Western citizens, support for restrictive health policies (e.g., mandatory quarantining) would be determined more through preexisting prejudice towards African immigrants than fears of Ebola infection. A questionnaire study with time‐lagged measurement of predictor and criterion variables employing a German sample (N = 218) that was heterogeneous in terms of gender, age, profession, political orientation, and income level provided clear support for this assumption. Although variables related to fear‐of‐infection were significant predictors, prejudice‐related variables explained several times more variance in participants’ support for restrictive policies. Moreover, the degree to which participants adopted prevalent beliefs regarding the sociocultural origins of Ebola (e.g., eating bushmeat) further intensified the impact of prejudice‐related variables.

Despite of the popularity of emphasizing diversity information on university websites surprisingly little is known about if how and why diversity recruitment strategies actually affect students' enrollment decisions. To gain insight into this question this paper introduces and tests a model applying general social psychological theorizing to the relationships that older university applicants may form with a potential future university. Study 1 (N = 172), a web-based scenario experiment, confirmed the model's assumption that emphasizing diversity in terms of students' age increases perceived person-organization fit through consolidating anticipation of organization-based respect and pride. Study 2 (N = 195), a naturalistic field study among actual university applicants, replicated this mediational model. Importantly, including alternative predictors of applicants' enrollment decisions in the model (e.g., personal goals for studying) did not change this picture. An additional follow-up after 3 months (N = 62) also secured evidence for the proposed model's predictive power with regard to participants' actual enrollment. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings for university recruitment strategies are discussed.

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