Two brief interventions to mitigate a “chilly climate” transform women’s experience, relationships, and achievement in engineering.

In a randomized-controlled trial, we tested 2 brief interventions designed to mitigate the effects of a “chilly climate” women may experience in engineering, especially in male-dominated fields. Participants were students entering a selective university engineering program. The social-belonging intervention aimed to protect students’ sense of belonging in engineering by providing a nonthreatening narrative with which to interpret instances of adversity. The affirmation-training intervention aimed to help students manage stress that can arise from social marginalization by incorporating diverse aspects of their self-identity in their daily academic lives. As expected, gender differences and intervention effects…

• SF
  Spencer Foundation
• SF
  Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues
• UO
  University of Waterloo
• SS
  Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada