Preconscious Attentional Bias to Rejection Facilitates Social Distancing for White Women in STEM Contexts
Social Cognition
; 40(5):438, 2022.
Article
in English
| ProQuest Central | ID: covidwho-2047286
ABSTRACT
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM) contexts are imbued with identity-threat cues for women, leading to disengagement. Research on the vigilance-avoidance hypothesis suggests that individuals rapidly detect threat cues and subsequently avoid detected threats to mitigate experiencing the negative implications associated with the threat. Integrating these lines of research, the present research examined White women's preconscious attentional bias to rejection (PAB-R) and avoidance behavior (social distancing) in STEM contexts after exposure to identity-threat and identity-safety cues compared to neutral conditions. White women's PAB-R was significantly greater in response to identity-threat cues and significantly decreased in response to identity-safety cues. Moreover, greater PAB-R led to greater social distancing (Studies 1b and 2). The present studies identified PAB-R as a novel, automatic process by which identity cues were associated with avoidance for women in STEM.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
Databases of international organizations
Database:
ProQuest Central
Language:
English
Journal:
Social Cognition
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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