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

Moser, Charlotte, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

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.