Psychological Bulletin

The development of children’s gender stereotypes about STEM and verbal abilities: A preregistered meta-analytic review of 98 studies.
This meta-analysis studied the development of ability stereotypes that could limit girls’ and women’s participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, as well as contribute to boys’ underachievement in reading and writing. We integrated findings from 98 studies measuring children’s gender stereotypes about STEM and verbal abilities. The data comprised 145,204 children (ages 4–17) from 33 nations across more than 40 years (1977–2020). Preregistered analyses showed why prior researchers have reached diverging conclusions about the onset, change, and extent of these stereotypes in childhood and adolescence. Contrary to some prior conclusions, math stereotypes favoring male ability were minimal on average (0.11 SDs from gender neutrality). Stereotypes were instead far stronger for computer science, engineering, and physics (0.51 SDs), which favored male ability by age 6. Girls increasingly endorsed pro-male STEM stereotypes with age. Pro-female verbal ability stereotypes were also substantial (0.46 SDs), emerging by age 8 and becoming more female-biased with age. Additionally, STEM stereotypes were weaker for Black than White U.S. participants, as predicted. Unexpectedly, however, boys’ STEM stereotypes declined before age 13 but increased thereafter, revealing an asymmetric development across STEM versus verbal domains. We integrated developmental intergroup theory and social role theory to explain this asymmetry, considering both cognitive and sociocultural processes. The early emergence of verbal stereotypes and certain STEM stereotypes (e.g., engineering) means that they have ample time to affect later downstream outcomes such as domain-specific confidence and interests. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Cultural diversity climate in school: A meta-analytic review of its relationships with intergroup, academic, and socioemotional outcomes.
This first-of-its-kind meta-analysis (N = 79 studies; 56,552 students; k = 640 effects) provides a comprehensive assessment of five cultural diversity climate approaches that capture different ways of addressing cultural diversity in K-12 schools. We examined how intergroup contact theory’s optimal contact conditions, multiculturalism climate, colorblind climate, critical consciousness climate, and polyculturalism climate were associated with children’s and adolescents’ intergroup outcomes (intergroup attitudes, cross-group friendships, experienced discrimination), academic outcomes (academic achievement, motivation, engagement), and socioemotional outcomes (belonging, well-being). Results from meta-analytic random-effects models revealed the largest and most consistent effects for optimal contact conditions, with small-to-medium-sized effects and significant relationships with all outcomes. Multiculturalism climate was significantly and positively related to intergroup attitudes, achievement, motivation, and belonging (mostly, these were small effect sizes). Critical consciousness climate (small effect sizes) and polyculturalism climate (small-to-medium effect sizes) were correlated with both academic and socioemotional outcomes. Colorblind climate was not significantly associated with any outcomes. Moderator analyses revealed that contact conditions exhibited larger effects in secondary education compared with primary education and in the United States compared with Europe. The percentage of majority group members moderated some relationships (e.g., contact conditions had smaller effects when there were more majority group members in the sample). Significantly larger effects emerged for student-reported colorblind climate measures than for teacher-reported measures. Overall, this meta-analysis provides a highly nuanced view of the most robust evidence for the associations between cultural diversity climate and outcomes that are critical for positive child and youth development to date. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Associations between cognitive appraisals and emotions: A meta-analytic review.
The core premise of cognitive appraisal theories of emotion is that emotions are produced from our interpretation of what we experience. Compared to other major theoretical frameworks in emotion, the appraisal perspective emphasizes the centrality of these cognitive interpretations in giving rise to emotions. Decades of research have yielded numerous studies that broadly agree on the centrality of the appraisal process, but differ in the details, with different lists of appraisal dimensions, terminology, and only qualitative predictions for the relationship between select appraisals and emotions. Despite hundreds of published empirical studies, the field still lacks a systematic, quantitative meta-analysis that can establish support for the detailed relationships between appraisals and emotions. Here, we conducted a mixed-effects meta-analysis of 2,634 effect sizes from 309 studies across 251 reports, covering 47 distinct appraisals and 63 emotions, to assess the evidence for 853 specific appraisal–emotion relationships. We find that 75.0% of previously hypothesized relationships between appraisals and emotions were statistically significant, with an average moderate-to-large effect size (mean r = .33). We also highlight many previously unpredicted relationships, with an average small-to-moderate effect size (mean r = .27), which can form the basis for future confirmatory studies and theory refinement. As a summary, we provide a taxonomy of appraisal dimensions, as well as appraisal profiles of these emotions, which could be useful to affective scientists, clinical psychologists, and applied behavioral researchers. Taken together, this review documents the state of knowledge in the field and generates new hypotheses for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Defining social reward: A systematic review of human and animal studies.
Social rewards are strong drivers of behavior and fundamental to well-being, yet there is a lack of consensus regarding what actually defines a reward as “social.” Because a systematic overview of existing social reward operationalizations is currently absent, a review of the literature seems necessary to advance toward a unified framework and to better guide research and theory. To bridge this gap, we preregistered and conducted the first comprehensive systematic review of human and animal experimental studies that used the term “social reward” and charted existing operationalizations, revealing the implicit and explicit definitions used in the field. Stimulus characteristics and measures of social reward were extracted from a total of 384 studies encompassing 42,118 participants and subjects. We provide detailed summaries of these elements, stratified by species (human/animal) and study type (behavioral, brain imaging, pharmacological, and physiological). Two main aspects were found to account for most of the difference in operationalizations: the sensory richness of a stimulus (intimacy) and engagement in social interaction (i.e., the synchronous observation and action between at least two individuals, viz., immediacy). Drawing insights from second-person neuroscience approaches and theoretical models in the field of human–computer interaction, we propose that human and animal research can greatly benefit from considering these properties, as they have important theoretical and practical consequences for human and translational research, with far-reaching implications for neighboring research fields such as those pertaining to social media and the development of artificial intelligence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)

Psychological Bulletin - Vol 150, Iss 12