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1. Emotion, embodiment, and reproductive colonialism in the global human egg trade

   https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12637  

   Tober, Diane ; Kroløkke, Charlotte ( March 2021 , Gender, Work & Organization)

   null (Ed.)

   In the transnational fertility industry, individuals have differently positioned bodies, ranked by race, class, education, socioeconomic status, gender, and citizenship. Different forms of labor support the transnational fertility market, bringing geopolitical, and social inequities to the fore. While some people need wombs, eggs, or sperm to create their families—and have the means to pay for third‐party reproductive services—others emerge as suppliers of reproductive labor, and still others as coordinators or service agents in the international fertility industry. Building upon contemporary feminist social science and postcolonial research on reproductive travel and labor, this article explores three intersecting components: the forces that influence reproductive travel and cross‐border egg donation; how emotion and meaning are framed in clinical settings to recruit a young, healthy, able‐bodied workforce; and the embodied experiences of women who travel across borders to provide eggs for pay. Drawing upon donor and professional interviews, and multisited online and ethnographic fieldwork in fertility clinics, we explore the linkages between emotional choreography and the creation of a bioavailable workforce for the global fertility trade. Here, we examine how local and cross‐border egg provision illuminate global reproductive hierarchies—what we call “reproductive colonialism”—in transnational reproduction. 

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2. Work in Progress: Understanding Student Perceptions of Stress as part of Engineering Culture

   Cross, Kelly J. ; Jensen, Karin J. ( January 2018 , American Society of Engineering Education Conference Proceedings)

   High levels of stress and anxiety are common amongst college students, particularly engineering students. Students report lack of sleep, grades, competition, change in lifestyle, and other significant stressors throughout their undergraduate education (1, 2). Stress and anxiety have been shown to negatively impact student experience (3-6), academic performance (6-8), and retention (9). Previous studies have focused on identifying factors that cause individual students stress while completing undergraduate engineering degree programs (1). However, it not well-understood how a culture of stress is perceived and is propagated in engineering programs or how this culture impacts student levels of identification with engineering. Further, the impact of student stress has not been directly considered in engineering regarding recruitment, retention, and success. Therefore, our guiding research question is: Does the engineering culture create stress for students that hinder their engineering identity development? To answer our research question, we designed a sequential mixed methods study with equal priority of quantitative survey data and qualitative individual interviews. Our study participants are undergraduate engineering students across all levels and majors at a large, public university. Our sample goal is 2000 engineering student respondents. We combined three published surveys to build our quantitative data collection instrument, including the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS), Identification with engineering subscale, and Engineering Department Inclusion Level subscale. The objective of the quantitative instrument is to illuminate individual perceptions of the existence of an engineering stress culture (ESC) and create an efficient tool to measure the impact ESC on engineering identity development. Specifically, we seek to understand the relationships among the following constructs; 1) identification with engineering, 2) stress and anxiety, and 3) feelings of inclusion within their department. The focus of this paper presents the results of the pilot of the proposed instrument with 20 participants and a detailed data collection and analysis process. In an effort to validate our instrument, we conducted a pilot study to refine our data collection process and the results will guide the data collection for the larger study. In addition to identifying relationships among construct, the survey data will be further analyzed to specify which demographics are mediating or moderating factors of these relationships. For example, does a student’s 1st generation status influence their perception of stress or engineering identity development? Our analysis may identify discipline-specific stressors and characterize culture components that promote student anxiety and stress. Our objective is to validate our survey instrument and use it to inform the protocol for the follow-up interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the responses to the survey instrument. Understanding what students view as stressful and how students identify stress as an element of program culture will support the development of interventions to mitigate student stress. References 1. Schneider L (2007) Perceived stress among engineering students. A Paper Presented at St. Lawrence Section Conference. Toronto, Canada. Retrieved from: www. asee. morrisville. edu. 2. Ross SE, Niebling BC, & Heckert TM (1999) Sources of stress among college students. Social psychology 61(5):841-846. 3. Goldman CS & Wong EH (1997) Stress and the college student. Education 117(4):604-611. 4. Hudd SS, et al. (2000) Stress at college: Effects on health habits, health status and self-esteem. College Student Journal 34(2):217-228. 5. Macgeorge EL, Samter W, & Gillihan SJ (2005) Academic Stress, Supportive Communication, and Health A version of this paper was presented at the 2005 International Communication Association convention in New York City. Communication Education 54(4):365-372. 6. Burt KB & Paysnick AA (2014) Identity, stress, and behavioral and emotional problems in undergraduates: Evidence for interaction effects. Journal of college student development 55(4):368-384. 7. Felsten G & Wilcox K (1992) Influences of stress and situation-specific mastery beliefs and satisfaction with social support on well-being and academic performance. Psychological Reports 70(1):291-303. 8. Pritchard ME & Wilson GS (2003) Using emotional and social factors to predict student success. Journal of college student development 44(1):18-28. 9. Zhang Z & RiCharde RS (1998) Prediction and Analysis of Freshman Retention. AIR 1998 Annual Forum Paper. 

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3. A Race-Based Size Bias for Black Adolescent Boys: Size, Innocence, and Threat

   https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231167978  

   Freiburger, Erin ; Sim, Mattea ; Halberstadt, Amy G. ; Hugenberg, Kurt ( May 2023 , Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin)

   We adopted an intersectional stereotyping lens to investigate whether race-based size bias—the tendency to judge Black men as larger than White men—extends to adolescents. Participants judged Black boys as taller than White boys, despite no real size differences (Studies 1A and 1B), and even when boys were matched in age (Study 1B). The size bias persisted when participants viewed computer-generated faces that varied only in apparent race (Study 2A) and extended to perceptions of physical strength, with Black boys judged as stronger than White boys (Study 2B). The size bias was associated with threat-related perceptions, including beliefs that Black boys were less innocent than White boys (Study 3). Finally, the size bias was moderated by a valid threat signal (i.e., anger expressions, Studies 4A and 4B). Thus, adult-like threat stereotypes are perpetrated upon Black boys, leading them to be erroneously perceived as more physically formidable than White boys.

    

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4. Experimental sleep loss, racial bias, and the decision criterion to shoot in the Police Officer’s Dilemma task

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77522-z  

   Scullin, Michael K. ; Hebl, Michelle R. ; Corrington, Abby ; Nguyen, Stacy ( November 2020 , Scientific Reports)

   Violent behavior, police brutality, and racial discrimination are currently at the forefront of society’s attention, and they should be. We investigated whether mild sleep loss—as typical for many adults throughout the work week—could aggravate the socio-emotional-cognitive processes contributing to violence and discrimination. In a sample of 40 healthy young adults, we either experimentally restricted participants’ sleep for four nights (6.2 h/night) or let participants obtain normal sleep (7.7 h/night)—and then had them complete the Police Officer’s Dilemma Task. In this computerized task, the participant must rapidly decide to shoot or not shoot at White and Black men who either are or are not holding a gun. Results showed significant racial biases, including more and quicker shooting of Black targets compared to White targets. Furthermore, signal detection analyses demonstrated that mild sleep restriction changed participants’ decision criterion, increasing the tendency to shoot, even when controlling for psychomotor vigilance, fluid intelligence, and self-reported desirability to behave in a socially acceptable manner. The increased tendency to shoot was also observed in participants who reported believing that they had adapted to the sleep loss. Future experimental research using trained police officers will help establish the generalizability of these laboratory effects. Importantly, sleep loss is modifiable via organization-level changes (e.g., shift scheduling, light entrainment) and individual-level interventions (e.g., sleep hygiene education, incentives for behavioral change), suggesting that if sleep loss is corrected, it could save lives—including Black lives.

    

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5. Mastery, models, messengers, and mixed emotions: Examining the development of engineering self‐efficacy by gender

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20494  

   Chen, Xiao‐Yin ; Usher, Ellen L. ; Roeder, Madelyn ; Johnson, Alecia R. ; Kennedy, Marian S. ; Mamaril, Natasha A. ( January 2023 , Journal of Engineering Education)

   Engineering self‐efficacy, or the belief in one's own capabilities to complete engineering tasks, has been shown to predict greater motivation, academic performance, and retention of engineering students. Investigating the types of experiences that influence engineering students' self‐efficacy can reveal ways to support students in their undergraduate engineering programs.

   The purpose of this study was to qualitatively examine how undergraduate engineering students describe the sources of their engineering self‐efficacy and whether patterns in students' responses differed by gender.

   Participants (N = 654) were undergraduate engineering students attending two public, land‐grant universities in the U.S. Open‐ended survey questions were used to identify the events, social experiences, and emotions that students described as relevant to their engineering self‐efficacy. Chi‐square analyses were used to investigate whether response patterns varied by gender.

   Students described enactive performances as their most salient source of self‐efficacy, but interesting insights also emerged about how engineering students draw from social and emotional experiences when developing their self‐efficacy. Women more often referred to social sources of self‐efficacy and reported fewer positive emotions than did men.

   Findings suggest ways that educators can provide more targeted opportunities for students to develop their self‐efficacy in engineering.

    

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