Mentors, Meaning, & Self-Image

Social contexts shift individuals’ self-perceptions

Guided by the Stereotype Inoculation Model (Dasgupta, 2011), our work shows that just as biomedical vaccines protect and inoculate one’s physical body against noxious bacteria and viruses, so too a few features of achievement-oriented situations protect and inoculate young people’s mind against negative stereotypes about their group.

Exposure to successful individuals who are respected and valued increases aspirants’ confidence and allows them to imagine their future self in such roles. Situations that foster close relationships with ingroup peers as mentors and cohort-mates enhance aspirants’ belonging, confidence, achievement, and persistence in achievement domains. Situations that make academic pursuits purpose-driven and personally meaningful enhance persistence.

These positive outcomes occur because they satisfy three universal human motives: the need to belong, to develop a sense of mastery, and engage in work that’s personally meaningful.

Key Publications:

Burrage, A., Dasgupta, N., & Ganguli, I. (2025). Gender Diversity in Academic Entrepreneurship: Social Impact Motives and the NSF I-Corps Program. Research Policy. [get paper]

Wu, D.J., Gibson, T.M., Ziegenbein, L.M., Phillis, R.W., Zehnder, C.B., Connor, E.A., & Dasgupta, N. (2024). An Identity-Based Learning Community Intervention Enhances the Lived Experience and Success of First-Generation College Students in the Biological Sciences. Scientific Reports, 14, 10163. [get paper]

Dasgupta, N. (2023). “To Make Science and Engineering More Diverse, Make Research Socially Relevant.” Issues in Science and Technology, 40(1), 76–79. [get paper]

Wu, D., Thiem, K., & Dasgupta, N. (2022). Female Peer Mentors Early in College Have Lasting Positive Impacts on Female Engineering Students that Persists After Graduation. Nature Communications, 13(6837), 1-12. [get paper]

Dasgupta, N., Thiem, K., Coyne, A., Laws, H., Barbieri, M., & Wells, R. (2022). The Impact of Communal Learning Contexts on Adolescent Self-concept and Achievement: Similarities and Differences Across Race and Gender. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 123(3), 537–558. [get paper]

Thiem, K., & Dasgupta, N. (2022). From pre-college to career: Barriers facing historically marginalized students and research-driven solutions. Social Issues and Policy Review, 16(1), 212-251. [get paper]

Riegle-Crumb, C., Morton, K., Nyugen, U., & Dasgupta, N. (2019). Inquiry-Based Instruction in Science and Mathematics Middle School Classrooms: Examining Its Association with Students’ Attitudes by Gender and Race/Ethnicity. AERA Open, 5(3), 1-17. [get paper]

Dennehy, T.C.& Dasgupta, N. (2017). Female peer mentors early in college increase women’s positive academic experiences and retention in engineering. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(23), 5964-5969. [get paper]

Dennehy, T.C., Smith, J.S., Moore, C.D., & Dasgupta, N. (2017). Stereotype Threat and Stereotype Inoculation: Barriers and Interventions that Promote the Success of Underrepresented Students in the First Year of College. In R. Feldman (Ed.), First Year Student Success. Cambridge University Press. [get paper]

Dasgupta, N. (2015). Role models and peers as a social vaccine to enhance women’s self-concept in STEM. American Society for Cell Biology Newsletter, 38(7), 8–12. [get paper]

Dasgupta, N., Scircle, M., & Hunsinger, M. (2015). Female peers in work teams enhance women’s motivation, verbal participation, and career aspirations in engineering. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(16), 4988-4993. [get paper]

Dasgupta, N. & Stout, J.G. (2014). Girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics: STEMing the tide and broadening participation in STEM careers. Policy Insights from Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1, 21-29 [get paper]

Stout, J. G., & Dasgupta, N. (2013). Mastering one’s destiny mastery goals promote challenge and success despite social identity threat. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39(6), 748-762. [get paper]

Asgari, S., Dasgupta, N., & Stout, J. G. (2012). When do counterstereotypic ingroup members inspire vs. deflate? The effect of successful professional women on women’s leadership self-concept. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 370-383. [get paper]

Dasgupta, N. (2011). Ingroup experts and peers as social vaccines who inoculate the self-concept: The stereotype inoculation model. Psychological Inquiry, 22, 231-246. [get paper]

Stout, J. G., Dasgupta, N., Hunsinger, M., & McManus, M. (2011). STEMing the tide: Using ingroup experts to inoculate women’s self-concept and professional goals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 255-270. [get paper]

Stout, J.G., & Dasgupta, N. (2011). When he doesn’t mean you: Gender-exclusive language as ostracism for women. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 757-769. [get paper]

Asgari, S., Dasgupta, N., & Gilbert Cote, N. (2010). When does contact with successful ingroup members change self-stereotypes? A longitudinal study comparing the effect of quantity vs. quality of contact with successful individuals. Social Psychology, 41, 203-211. [get paper]

Dasgupta, N., & Asgari, S. (2004). Seeing is believing: Exposure to counterstereotypic women leaders and its effect on automatic gender stereotyping. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 642-658.[get paper]