Belonging in STEM: Growth Mindset as a Filter of Contextual Cues

Undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs face unique challenges to their psychological well-being, including sense of belonging. Recent evidence suggests that beliefs about the malleability intelligence (growth mindsets) support STEM students’ belongingness, though mechanisms this relationship are unclear. We propose test a model which personal growth mindset relate belonging by operating as filter environmental cues, especially those signaling instructors’ mindsets, peers’ school’s trustworthiness. Across more than 3000 two diverse contexts, we found general for (mean RMSEA = 0.041; mean R2 39%). Perceived cues fully mediated (Study 1) partially 2) total effect on In addition generalizability, there was meaningful heterogeneity results observed across contexts. These suggest novel filtering function mindsets Discussion centers factors may account variability, well theoretical practical implications findings.