Presenter: Kristina Lowney
Faculty Mentor: Sara Hodges, Gail Unruh
Presentation Type: Poster 26
Primary Research Area: Social Science
Major: Psychology
Funding Source: McNair Scholarship, McNair Scholarship Program
In their daily interactions, people demonstrate varying levels of empathic accuracy, a construct that refers to people’s ability to accurately infer the thoughts and feelings of others. This study examines whether feelings of self-doubt impact empathic accuracy, particularly in women, when they are interpreting feedback in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Women are underrepresented in the STEM fields as they choose not to continue their studies or not even pursue STEM fields at all. One reason for this trend might be attributed to how they interpret feedback in the domain. Seventy-two dyads composed of graduate and undergraduate students in STEM fields were recruited and held recorded conversations to discuss graduate school. Graduate students provided feedback to undergraduates interested in attending graduate school in a related field. Undergraduate students were asked about their feelings of self doubt, and they were also asked to infer the graduate student’s thoughts regarding the undergraduate’s future prospects in graduate school. Results indicated that there was no significant difference between male and female undergraduates for self doubt or empathic accuracy. These findings are considered in terms of other possible underlying factors contributing to women’s underrepresentation in STEM.