Sex bias in the evaluation of performance in the scientific, artistic, and literary professions: A review

Effects of Gender Bias on the Evaluation of Male and Female Swim Coaches

The purpose of this study was to examine whether male and female swimmers exhibit gender biases toward male and female coaches who vary in status. Subjects were 18 male and 20 female competitive swimmers from the Thunder Bay Thunderbolt Swim Club, Ontario, Canada. Each subject responded to a questionnaire that included a coaching philosophy statement of either a high- or low-status coach and four questions using Likert format. These pertained to the knowledge of the coach, ability of the coach to motivate, the athlete's personal desire to swim for that coach, and the anticipated future success of the coach. The swimmers were asked to decide by which coach they would prefer to be coached. Analysis indicated that male and female athletes do not rate male coaches differently from each other. Both groups preferred and rated same-sex coaches higher in ability to motivate, desire to swim for, and anticipated future success. The gender of the athletes' present coach had a significant effect on whether the athletes chose a male or female coach.

Using New Technology to Assess the Academic Writing Styles of Male and Female Pairs and Individuals

Background:

Previous research suggests that there are advantages to writing in groups or in pairs compared with writing individually, and that men write differently from women. However, as far as we know, no one has yet used new technology to assess published academic articles written in these different modes.

Method:

We assembled 80 papers from recent issues of the Journal of Educational Psychology as follows: 21 authored by individual men, 21 by individual women, 19 by pairs of men, and 19 by pairs of women. We then used two computer-based measures to assess various textual features of the Abstracts, the Introductions, and the Discussion sections of these 80 papers.

Results:

Several differences were found between these various parts of the journal articles (e.g., the Discussions were more readable than the Introductions and these in turn were more readable than the Abstracts). However, there were few differences between the writing of pairs or individuals, or between that of men and women.

Conclusions:

There was no real evidence to support the notion that writing in pairs would lead to better quality articles or that there would be differences between the readability of papers produced by men and women. Such differences may occur, however, before peer review.

Who is the better applicant? Effects from gender, academic record, and type of decision

This experiment recreates several features of the selection of candidates for junior professional positions. The situation of central interest involves an assessor (either male or female) and a pair consisting of a male and a female applicant with either equivalent or slightly different academic records. We also investigate effects from quality of record (either excellent or poor) and type of decision (namely, choice between applicants, and ratings of competence and suitability). Our hypotheses consider both gender as social status and as social identity, and predict different outcomes depending on decision type. In line with those predictions, findings show that, at both levels of performance, the question about competence elicited effects only from the two applicants' relative academic standing, while the choice and suitability measures show effects from that standing as well as from sex category of applicant and of assessor. Results and their interpretation are presented and discussed in detail.

Gender bias in the evaluation of new age music

Eminent composers in Western European art music continue to be predominantly male and eminence in contemporary pop music is similarly male dominated. One contributing factor may be the continuing under-valuation of women's music. Possible anti-female bias in a contemporary genre was investigated using the Goldberg paradigm to elicit judgments of New Age compositions. Since stronger stereotyping effects occur when information provided about individuals is sparse, fictitious male and female composers were presented either by name only or by name with a brief biography. Evidence for anti-female bias was found in the name-only condition and was stronger when liking for the music was controlled. Other findings were the tendency for females to give higher ratings, and the association of gender differences in liking of the music with ratings of quality in the name-only condition. These results are relevant to the design of formal assessment procedures for musical composition.