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An increasing number of colleges and universities now require graduate student and faculty applicants to submit personal diversity statements for evaluation. Despite their rising use, little is known about how the personal diversity statement writing process is experienced by applicants. For White individuals in particular, their sources of egalitarian motivation may influence affective responses to writing a diversity statement given the content that is typical of these application components and the unease demonstrated in response to diversity-related contexts that is characteristic of White people with a strong external motivation to respond without prejudice. In the present study, White students at an American university participated in a personal diversity statement writing task and self-reported their motivation to respond without prejudice (in advance of the session) and affect (following the writing task). Despite prior research suggesting that they would feel otherwise, participants reported more positive affect compared to negative affect in relation to writing the diversity statement. When considering their sources of motivation, however, White individuals who were more externally motivated to respond without prejudice reported slightly more negative affect in reaction to the diversity statement writing task when compared to those low in external motivation. These findings have implications for the inclusion of personal diversity statements in candidate application materials at various levels of higher education.

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In this article we apply a developmental psychology analysis to sex offender laws and policies for adolescents to examine how such laws and policies, derived primarily from downward extension of adult criminal predatory sexual offender statutes and policies, serve the early identification of predators, constraint of such behavior, and/or engagement in rehabilitation. This focus is framed within advances in the past 20 years in the understanding of neurobiology and the social development of adolescence and in the understanding of the makeup of the population potentially coming under juvenile sex offender regulations. We find a significant mismatch between the prevailing laws and policies and the scientific knowledge about adolescents' development and the intended service to public safety. We provide suggestions from the attending empirical knowledge for increasing differentiation in the understanding of and treatment of adolescents and adult offenders. We also suggest heterogeneity, or subgroup differences, within the adolescent population now considered offenders are an important contributor to the mismatch. We discuss the benefits of structuring policies and laws so they are grounded in a developmental understanding of behavior, which will likely lead to a reduction in recidivism and an increase in public safety. Similarly, important research efforts to shore up understanding are proposed.

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