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An abundance of literature has examined barriers to women's equitable representation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, with many studies demonstrating that STEM fields are not perceived to afford communal goals, a key component of women's interest in future careers. Using Goal Congruity Theory as a framework, we tested the longitudinal impact of perceptions of STEM career goal affordances, personal communal and agentic goal endorsements, and their congruity on persistence in science from the second through fourth years of college among women in STEM majors in the United States. We found that women's intent to persist in science were highest in the fall of their second year, that persistence intentions exhibited a sharp decline, and eventually leveled off by their fourth year of college. This pattern was moderated by perceptions of agentic affordances in STEM, such that women who believe that STEM careers afford the opportunity for achievement and individualism experienced smaller declines. We found that higher perceptions of communal goal affordances in STEM consistently predicted higher persistence intentions indicating women may benefit from perceptions that STEM affords communal goals. Finally, we found women with higher agentic affordances in STEM also had greater intentions to persist, and this relationship was stronger for women with higher agentic goals. We conclude that because STEM fields are stereotyped as affording agentic goals, women who identify interest in a STEM major during their first years of college may be drawn to these fields for this reason and may benefit from perceptions that STEM affords agentic goals.

To be a desirable social partner and develop healthy relationships with peers, a child must be able to engage with peers across a variety of contexts. Understanding the factors supporting high levels of social engagement with peers is thereby essential, requiring the development of nuanced and ecologically valid indices of social engagement. Building on recent adult work, the current study explores conversational response time as a novel index of children's social engagement with peers in a dyadic context. This study further explores relationship between conversational response time and children's shyness. Fifty‐six 9‐ to 11‐year‐old children interacted with an unfamiliar peer in an unstructured setting and completed a self‐report measure of shyness. Children's behaviour was coded for their conversational RTs and overall social engagement. Faster conversational RTs were significantly related to children's own social engagement and marginally related to their partners' engagement. Moreover, higher shyness in children's partners predicted faster conversational RTs in children themselves. New directions for using conversational RT as an index of children's social engagement and implications for accounts children's social development are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background In the USA, nirmatrelvir/ritonavir is authorized for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in patients at least 12 years of age, at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19. Objectives To estimate the impact of outpatient nirmatrelvir/ritonavir on COVID-19 hospitalization risk in a US healthcare system. Methods We conducted a cohort study using electronic health records among outpatients with a positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR test between January and August 2022. We evaluated the association of nirmatrelvir/ritonavir therapy with time to hospitalization by estimating adjusted HRs and assessed the impact of nirmatrelvir/ritonavir on predicted COVID-19 hospitalizations using machine-learning methods. Results Among 44 671 patients, 4948 (11%) received nirmatrelvir/ritonavir, and 201 (0.4%) were hospitalized within 28 days of COVID-19 diagnosis. Nirmatrelvir/ritonavir recipients were more likely to be older, white, vaccinated, have comorbidities and reside in areas with higher average socioeconomic status. The 28 day cumulative incidence of hospitalization was 0.06% (95% CI: 0.02%–0.17%) among nirmatrelvir/ritonavir recipients and 0.52% (95% CI: 0.46%–0.60%) among non-recipients. For nirmatrelvir/ritonavir versus no therapy, the age-adjusted HR was 0.08 (95% CI: 0.03–0.26); the fully adjusted HR was 0.16 (95% CI: 0.05–0.50). In the machine-learning model, the primary features reducing predicted hospitalization risk were nirmatrelvir/ritonavir, younger age, vaccination, female gender and residence in a higher socioeconomic status area. Conclusions COVID-19 hospitalization risk was reduced by 84% among nirmatrelvir/ritonavir recipients in a large, diverse healthcare system during the Omicron wave. These results suggest that nirmatrelvir/ritonavir remained highly effective in a setting substantially different than the original clinical trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral inhibition (BI) is a temperamental style characterized by cautious and fearful behaviors in novel situations. The present multi‐method, longitudinal study examined whether young children's observed and parent‐reported BI in social versus non‐social contexts predicts different long‐term psychosocial outcomes. Participants (N = 279) were drawn from a longitudinal study of socioemotional development. BI in social contexts ("social BI") was measured via children's observed wariness toward unfamiliar adults and peers at 24 and 36 months and parents' reports of children's social fear/shyness at 24, 36, and 48 months. BI in non‐social contexts ("non‐social BI") was measured via children's observed fearful responses to masks and novel toys, and parents' reports of children's distress to non‐social novelty at 9 months and non‐social fear at 48 months. At 15 years, anxiety was assessed via adolescent‐ and parent‐reports, and global internalizing and externalizing problems were assessed via parent‐reports. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that a two‐factor model fit the BI data significantly better than a single‐factor model, providing evidence for the dissociation of BI in social versus non‐social contexts. Social BI was uniquely associated with adolescent social anxiety, whereas non‐social BI was specifically associated with adolescent separation anxiety. Neither social BI nor non‐social BI predicted global internalizing and externalizing problems, providing evidence for the specific relations between BI and anxiety problems. Together, these results suggest that young children's inhibited responses in social versus non‐social situations predict different subtypes of anxiety problems in adolescence, highlighting the multifaceted nature of BI and the divergent trajectories of different anxiety problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is evidence that ambulatory people with incomplete spinal cord injury (iSCI) have an impaired ability to control lateral motion of their whole- body center of mass (COM) during walking. This impairment is believed to contribute to functional deficits in gait and balance, however that relationship is unclear. Thus, this cross-sectional study examines the relationship between the ability to control lateral COM motion during walking and functional measures of gait and balance in people with iSCI. Methods: We assessed the ability to control lateral COM motion during walking and conducted clinical gait and balance outcome measures on 20 ambulatory adults with chronic iSCI (C1-T10 injury, American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale C or D). To assess their ability to control lateral COM motion, participants performed three treadmill walking trials. During each trial, real-time lateral COM position and a target lane were projected on the treadmill. Participants were instructed to keep their lateral COM position within the lane. If successful, an automated control algorithm progressively reduced the lane width, making the task more challenging. If unsuccessful, the lane width increased. The adaptive lane width was designed to challenge each participant's maximum capacity to control lateral COM motion during walking. To quantify control of lateral COM motion, we calculated lateral COM excursion during each gait cycle and then identified the minimum lateral COM excursion occurring during five consecutive gait cycles. Our clinical outcome measures were Berg Balance Scale (BBS), Timed Up and Go test (TUG), 10-Meter Walk Test (10MWT) and Functional Gait Assessment (FGA). We used a Spearman correlation analysis (ρ) to examine the relationship between minimum lateral COM excursion and clinical measures. Results: Minimum lateral COM excursion had significant moderate correlations with BBS (ρ=-0.54, =0.014), TUG (ρ=0.59, p = 0.007), FGA (ρ=-0.59, p=0.007), 10MWT-preferred (ρ=-0.59, p = 0.006) and 10MWT-fast (ρ=-0.68, p = 0.001). Conclusion: Control of lateral COM motion during walking is associated with a wide range of clinical gait and balance measures in people with iSCI. This finding suggests the ability to control lateral COM motion during walking could be a contributing factor to gait and balance in people with iSCI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant research has produced conflicting findings regarding the link between social fearfulness and prosocial behavior, with some studies reporting negative relations and others reporting null effects. Furthermore, these studies have focused predominantly on toddlerhood, and few have examined prosociality between peers. The present study investigated whether the link between social anxiety and prosocial behavior (i.e., providing encouragement) varied depending on interpersonal and situational factors (i.e., one's familiarity with a peer, and the level of support sought by a peer, respectively). We tested this question using a multimethod approach, which included ecologically valid stress‐inducing task and dyadic design with a sample of 9‐ to 10‐year‐olds (N = 447). Results revealed that social anxiety was related negatively to providing encouragement among familiar and unfamiliar dyads. In familiar dyads, however, this main effect was qualified by an interaction with the level of support sought by one's peer. Compared to those low in social anxiety, children high in social anxiety provided relatively less encouragement in response to higher levels of support seeking from their peers. The findings are considered in relation to theorizing regarding the effect of overarousal on children's prosocial behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral Inhibition is a temperament identified in the first years of life that enhances the risk for development of anxiety during late childhood and adolescence. Amongst children characterized with this temperament, only around 40 percent go on to develop anxiety disorders, meaning that more than half of these children do not. Over the past 20 years, research has documented within‐child and socio‐contextual factors that support differing developmental pathways. This review provides a historical perspective on the research documenting the origins of this temperament, its biological correlates, and the factors that enhance or mitigate risk for development of anxiety. We review as well, research findings from two longitudinal cohorts that have identified moderators of behavioral inhibition in understanding pathways to anxiety. Research on these moderators has led us to develop the Detection and Dual Control (DDC) framework to understand differing developmental trajectories among behaviorally inhibited children. In this review, we use this framework to explain why and how specific cognitive and socio‐contextual factors influence differential pathways to anxiety versus resilience. Read the Commentary on this article at doi: 10.1111/jcpp.13771. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]