GSE/RES Going against the grain: Intuitive information processing,

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Intellectual Merit: The University of Missouri Columbia proposes to provide a general model for understanding why women pursue STEM-related careers, despite various factors that render such pursuit difficult, drawing on models of intuitive judgment processes. Beginning with the notion that such decisions often result not from a logical weighing of pros and cons but rather a more intuitive process that is driven primarily by the feeling of rightness, the proposed effort will seek to demonstrate the ways that the positive affect that accompanies success experiences engenders a feeling of rightness, especially for women who are prone to follow hunches. Four experiments will examine gender differences in responses to success at stereotypically masculine (or feminine) tasks. The dependent measures will include task persistence, evaluations of the meaningfulness of the feedback given, and attitudes toward STEM-relevant fields. These studies will test the prediction that individual differences in intuitive information processing interact with positive affect to predict responses to success in STEM-relevant tasks, especially for women. Women who are likely to persist at such tasks or pursue such careers are those who privilege the internal gut feelings that are engendered by success over the messages of a nay-saying context. A final study will examine retrospective accounts of high school experiences in first year college women and will seek to predict their preferences for majors and careers from the interaction of negative climate, intuition, success experiences and positive affect. A prospective follow-up will test these predictions over time. The proposed studies grow directly out of a research program focusing on individual differences in intuition, susceptibility to the cognitive effects of positive affect, the privileging of mental events, and the experience of meaning. These studies will contribute to basic knowledge of personality and the prediction of behavior and to our understanding of the influence of individual differences on the relationship between mood and cognitive processes. Further, this work will embed these processes in the larger social context and provide innovative information about the ways that individuals choose to go against the grain and pursue life goals that stand in contradiction to social expectations.Broader Impacts: The larger impacts of this work will be evident in four domains. First, educationally, a team of graduate and undergraduate researchers (many of whom are women) will be actively engaged in the research process and included in conference travel. Second, because personality psychology itself remains a male-dominated area, this program of research will provide an opportunity to foster young women scholars with interests in this domain. Third, the research will be submitted to journals in personality and social psychology as well as disseminated more broadly. Fourth, in terms of societal impact, these studies may have implications for a broad range of individuals who pursue apparently unlikely goals, including men who pursue gender-atypical careers and under-represented groups (minorities, economically disadvantaged individuals) who, despite external messages to the contrary, follow their gut feelings toward fulfilling careers.