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Science can improve life around the world, but public trust in science is at risk. Understanding the presumed motives of scientists and science can inform the social psychological underpinnings of public trust in science. Across five independent datasets, perceiving the motives of science and scientists as prosocial promoted public trust in science. In Studies 1 and 2, perceptions that science was more prosocially oriented were associated with greater trust in science. Studies 3 and 4a & 4b employed experimental methods to establish that perceiving other-oriented motives, versus self-oriented motives, enhanced public trust in science. Respondents recommend greater funding allocations for science subdomains described as prosocially oriented versus power-oriented. Emphasizing the prosocial aspects of science can build stronger foundations of public trust in science.

As demands increase for individuals with expertise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), educational institutions and workplaces seek to identify strategies to recruit and retain talented individuals in STEM pathways. We investigate recruitment and retention into the STEM workforce and into primary and secondary STEM education careers by analyzing whether a particular role allows an individual to fulfill goals. The two occupational pathways reviewed here pose different goal congruity challenges: The STEM workforce seems to lack communal (other-oriented) goal opportunities, but math and science K-12 teaching seems to lack agentic (self-oriented) goal opportunities. Restructuring educational and occupational roles to maximize the pursuit of valued goals can encourage STEM recruitment and retention.

Despite global commitments and efforts, a gender-based division of paid and unpaid work persists. To identify how psychological factors, national policies, and the broader sociocultural context contribute to this inequality, we assessed parental-leave intentions in young adults (18-30 years old) planning to have children (N = 13,942; 8,880 identified as women; 5,062 identified as men) across 37 countries that varied in parental-leave policies and societal gender equality. In all countries, women intended to take longer leave than men. National parental-leave policies and women's political representation partially explained cross-national variations in the gender gap. Gender gaps in leave intentions were paradoxically larger in countries with more gender-egalitarian parental-leave policies (i.e., longer leave available to both fathers and mothers). Interestingly, this cross-national variation in the gender gap was driven by cross-national variations in women's (rather than men's) leave intentions. Financially generous leave and gender-egalitarian policies (linked to men's higher uptake in prior research) were not associated with leave intentions in men. Rather, men's leave intentions were related to their individual gender attitudes. Leave intentions were inversely related to career ambitions. The potential for existing policies to foster gender equality in paid and unpaid work is discussed.