Postdoctoral Fellowship: SPRF: Motivating Allyship Behaviors to Broaden Participation in STEM

该奖项是作为NSF社会、行为和经济学博士后研究奖学金(SPRF)计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学职业生涯培养有前途的、早期职业博士水平的科学家。SPRF奖项包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。国家科学基金会致力于促进科学界所有阶层的科学家参与其研究方案和活动，包括那些来自代表性不足的群体的科学家；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的一个重要水平。每个博士后研究员都必须解决推动各自学科领域向前发展的重要科学问题。在科罗拉多博尔德大学的Tiffany Ito博士和Evava Pietri博士的赞助下，这项博士后奖学金奖支持一名早期职业科学家研究鼓励友谊的方法。在STEM领域，友情已被证明可以增加归属感和留住的可能性。这个项目将采取激励性的方法来解决在友谊中参与的常见障碍。具体地说，这个项目将研究如何根据关键的心理和群体层面的需求来激发友谊。这项研究还将考察人们对成为盟友的动机的看法。尽管联盟关系已被证明能增加归属感和信心，但这些影响只有在个人愿意并有动力作为盟友的情况下才会发生。这项研究的第一个目的是检查鼓励友情行为的策略以及支撑这些策略的机制。这些研究从社会认同理论和自我决定理论出发，为理解优势群体成员作为弱势群体盟友的动机因素提供了一个更全面的框架。研究人员将采用各种实验，将友情定义为满足基本的心理和群体层面的需求，以测试满足这些需求是否会促进友情行为。本研究的第二个目的是探索STEM群体对友情策略的反应，扩大我们对友情对心理影响的总体理解。综上所述，这项研究将确定鼓励联谊的战略，这些战略1)有效地增加联谊行为，2)积极感知，3)并产生积极的STEM结果。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Tiffany Ito and Dr. Evava Pietri at the University of Colorado Boulder, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating ways to encourage allyship. Allyship has been shown to increase sense of belonging and likelihood of retention in STEM fields. This project will take a motivational approach to tackle common barriers to engagement in allyship. Specifically, this project will examine ways to motivate allyship based on key psychological and group-level needs. This research will additionally examine perceptions of the motivation to be an ally. Although allyship has been shown to increase sense of belonging and confidence, these effects will only occur to the extent that individuals are willing and motivated to act as allies. The first aim of the research is to examine tactics to encourage allyship behaviors and the mechanisms that underpin these tactics. These studies bridge theorizing from social identity theory and self-determination theory to provide a more comprehensive framework to understand motivational factors for members of advantaged groups to act as allies for disadvantaged groups. The researcher will employ a variety of experiments that frame allyship as meeting basic psychological and group-level needs to test whether meeting such needs promotes allyship behaviors. The second aim of this research is to explore responses to allyship strategies across STEM groups, expanding our understanding of the psychological impacts of allyship in general. Taken together, this research will identify strategies to encourage allyship that are 1) effective in increasing allyship behaviors, 2) perceived positively, and 3) and result in positive STEM outcomes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.