Projects in Social Psychology Supervised by Fiona Adjei Boateng
Professor Adjei Boateng will supervise one-semester senior projects in the Fall 2026 semester. Students may explore topics related to gender stereotypes, leadership, and helping behaviors in the workplace. Gender stereotypes play a powerful role in shaping how people are perceived and evaluated in professional settings. These stereotypes can influence who is seen as a leader, how men and women are evaluated when they receive or offer help, and how leadership decisions are judged, often in ways that create unequal advantages and disadvantages. Professor Adjei Boateng’s research explores these dynamics through the lens of social psychology, with a particular interest in the organizational settings.
Depending on interests and experience, students may choose one of the following project formats:
1. Empirical research: Collect data for new or ongoing studies using college and/or online samples (individual or small group).
2. Literature-based research proposal: Write a literature review and proposal of a new study.
Professor Adjei Boateng is open to working with students on topics related to those listed above. Example research projects include:
Gender Stereotypes and Helping in the Workplace: Research shows that helping behaviors in professional settings can have paradoxical effects: while helping is generally valued, it can also trigger gender stereotypes that harm evaluations of help-receivers. For example, women who help may be seen as less competent, while men who seek help may face status penalties. Students could investigate when and why these effects occur, how they vary across different types of help, or how organizational context moderates these patterns.
Male Allyship and Gender Equity: Despite stated support for gender equality, many men do not engage in allyship behaviors in the workplace (e.g., advocating for women colleagues, challenging sexist comments, supporting equity initiatives). Students could investigate the psychological barriers to male allyship, such as masculinity threat, fear of backlash, or lack of self-efficacy. Proposals might also explore interventions to increase men's engagement in gender equity efforts.
Intersectionality in Leadership Perception: Leaders occupy multiple social categories simultaneously (e.g., race and gender), yet most leadership research examines these dimensions in isolation. Intersectional approaches reveal that Black women leaders, for instance, face distinct stereotypes and evaluation patterns that differ from both White women and Black men. Students could develop proposals exploring how intersecting identities shape leadership perceptions, expectations and evaluations, focusing on questions like: How do leadership prototypes vary across racial and gender groups? When do intersectional stereotypes create unique advantages or disadvantages?