Navigating Science Pathways: Belonging Mediates the Impact of Goal Congruity on Persistence (but Not Life...

Indigenous/Native Americans remain highly underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Their underrepresentation may be due, in part, to the incongruity between personally valued goals (e.g., the communal goal of "giving back" to one's community and/or the agentic goal of "independence") and opportunities to satisfy those goals in STEM careers (i.e., affordances). Goal congruity theory posits that individuals' attitudes towards a social role (e.g., being a scientist) are influenced by the communal/agentic goal affordances associated with that role and the congruity between those affordances and personally valued goals. This longitudinal research study followed a large sample of Indigenous people pursuing STEM degrees/careers to investigate the direct and indirect effects of perceived communal/agentic goal affordances in STEM careers and incongruity (Time-2) on intentions to persist and life satisfaction (Time-3) through a sense of belonging in their STEM field (Time-2), controlling for baseline (Time-1). Both communal and agentic goal affordances positively influenced persistence intentions through belonging. By contrast, agentic goal incongruity negatively influenced persistence intentions through belonging, but communal goal incongruity did not. We found no significant results for global life satisfaction. Our findings underscore the significance of supporting roles and environments that facilitate the fulfillment of communal and agentic goals and point to the complexity of the goal-pursuit process among Indigenous populations.