This study analyzes senior women faculty's discourses about personal and professional experiences they believe contributed to their advancement in academic careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The purpose of the study is to understand factors that activate women's success in STEM disciplines where women's representation has not yet attained critical mass. A poststructuralist emphasis on complexity and changing nature of power relations offers a framework that illuminates the ways in which elite women navigate social inequalities, hierarchies of power, and non-democratic practices. Feminist poststructural discourse analysis (FPDA) methods allow analysis of women's talk about their experiences in order to understand the women's complex, shifting positions. Eight female tenured full professors of STEM at research-focused universities in the United States participated in the study. Data sources were in-depth semi-structured interviews, a demographic survey, and curricula vitae. Findings will help shape programs and policies aimed at increasing female representation and promoting achievement at senior levels in academic STEM fields.

The difficulty of distinguishing between genuine disorder and characteristics that can be attributed to high IQ increases the likelihood of diagnostic error by mental health practitioners. This mixed methods study explores the possibility of misdiagnosis of high IQ youth by mental health professionals. Participants were private practice mental health professionals who read case study vignettes illustrating high IQ youth exhibiting characteristics associated with their population. Participants then completed a survey and provided an assessment of the hypothetical client. In the study, 59% of participants were unable to recognize behavioral characteristics associated with high IQ youth unless suggested to them, and 95% of participants were unable to recognize emotional characteristics associated with high IQ youth unless suggested. The results of this study provide much-needed empirical exploration of the concern for misdiagnosis of high IQ youth and inform clinical practice and education.

Considerable psycho-physiological research on empathy examines biological structures such as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA-axis) and oxytocin systems as efficacious methods for strengthening positive emotional responses. This study recruited 76 adult participants (54 female, 23 male) for the purpose of evaluating the effects oxytocin and fiction reading have on empathetic responses. Participants completed a measure of trauma and received either intranasal oxytocin, a story created to induce emotional responses, or a neutral non-fiction story. Stressors were counterbalanced as a family or non-family stimuli to assess changes in stress response measured by salivary cortisol and heart rate variability. Results supported existing research stating that heart rate variability (HRV) is a more sensitive measure of stress. HRV statistically significantly interacted between type of stressor and PTSD symptomology (1, 70) = 5.018, p = .028, η2 =0.06. Scores on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) indicated there were increases in empathy across time, but were not impacted by exposure to stress or treatment condition. Trauma was identified as a statistically significant factor on heart rate variability F(1, 70) = 8.39, p = .005, η2 = .10. Treatment condition did not impact cortisol levels across time F(2, 71) = .2.532, p = .087, η2 = .11. …