Sending a message: tuning into graduate student values can benefit STEM research labs

Traditional scientific values are often described as agentic (e.g. independence, competition); however, scientists identifying as racially minoritized and marginalized (RMM) or as women are often highly motivated by communal values (e.g. collaboration, prosocial behaviors). Though alignment of one’s values in one’s work facilitates a persistence in motivation, it is not well understood if STEM faculty researchers are aware of the communal values their student researchers often hold. Here we focus on a key engine of the university research enterprise – graduate students – and ask if faculty mentors are cognizant of and make explicit their attunement to the communal values of their graduate student researchers. We found that when describing the values of graduate students, faculty underestimate the communal values that members of RMM groups are more likely to hold. When faculty communicated communal values, this correlated positively with a more diverse research lab and several measures of faculty success.