Contextualizing Gender Disparity in Editorship in Psychological Science

Discourse on gender diversity tends to overlook differences across levels of hierarchy (e.g., students, faculty, and editors) and critical dimensions (e.g., subdisciplines and geographical locations). Further ignored is its intersection with global diversity-representation from different countries. Here we document and contextualize gender disparity from perspectives of equal versus expected representation in journal editorship, by analyzing 68 top psychology journals in 10 subdisciplines. First, relative to ratios as students and faculty, women are underrepresented as editorial-board members (41%) and-unlike previous results based on one subfield-as editors-in-chief (34%) as well. Second, female ratios in editorship vary substantially across subdisciplines, genres of scholarship (higher in empirical and review journals than in method journals), continents/countries/regions (e.g., higher in North America than in Europe), and journal countries of origin (e.g., higher in American journals than in European journals). Third, under female (vs. male) editors-in-chief, women are much better represented as editorial-board members (47% vs. 36%), but the geographical diversity of editorial-board members and authorship decreases. These results reveal new local and broad contexts of gender diversity in editorship in psychology, with policy implications. Our approach also offers a methodological guideline for similar disparity research in other fields.

Gender bias in special issues: evidence from a bibliometric analysis

Even though the majority of psychologists are women, they are outnumbered by men in senior academic ranks. One reason for this representation bias in academia is that men favor other men in decision-making, especially when the stakes are high. We tested the possibility of such bias in a bibliometric analysis, in which we coded editors' and authors' gender in regular and special issues, the latter considered of higher scientific prominence. We examined all special issues from five prominent scientific outlets in the fields of personality and social psychology published in the twenty-first century. Altogether, we analyzed 1911 articles nested in 93 sets comprising a special issue and a neighboring regular issue treated as a control condition. For articles published in special (but not regular) issues, when there were more men editors, more men first-authored and co-authored the work. This pattern suggests how gender bias can be perpetuated within academia and calls for revising the editorial policies of leading psychology journals.

The Reproducibility Movement in Psychology: Does Researcher Gender Affect How People Perceive Scientists With a Failed Replication?

The reproducibility movement in psychology has resulted in numerous highly publicized instances of replication failures. The goal of the present work was to investigate people’s reactions to a psychology replication failure vs. success, and to test whether a failure elicits harsher reactions when the researcher is a woman vs. a man. We examined these questions in a pre-registered experiment with a working adult sample, a conceptual replication of that experiment with a student sample, and an analysis of data compiled and posted by a psychology researcher on their public weblog with the stated goal to improve research replicability by rank-ordering psychology researchers by their “estimated false discovery risk.” Participants in the experiments were randomly assigned to read a news article describing a successful vs. failed replication attempt of original work from a male vs. female psychological scientist, and then completed measures of researcher competence, likability, integrity, perceptions of the research, and behavioral intentions for future interactions with the researcher. In both working adult and student samples, analyses consistently yielded large main effects of replication outcome, but no interaction with researcher gender. Likewise, the coding of weblog data posted in July 2021 indicated that 66.3% of the researchers scrutinized were men and 33.8% were women, and their rank-ordering was not correlated with researcher gender. The lack of support for our pre-registered gender-replication hypothesis is, at first glance, encouraging for women researchers’ careers; however, the substantial effect sizes we observed for replication outcome underscore the tremendous negative impact the reproducibility movement can have on psychologists’ careers. We discuss the implications of such negative perceptions and the possible downstream consequences for women in the field that are essential for future study.

U.S. Women Faculty in the Social Sciences Also Face Gender Inequalities

There is a national interest in United States women's underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); however, gender inequality in the social sciences has not received similar attention. Although women increasingly earn postgraduate degrees in the social sciences, women faculty still experience gender inequities. Consistent gender inequities include slower career advancement, blunted salaries, unequal workloads, work-life conflict, systemic gender biases, underrepresentation in positions of power, and hostile work environments. Cultural biases suggest that once women have achieved parity, gender bias no longer exists. This review challenges that notion by providing evidence from social science domains in which women are well-represented but continue to face systemic gender biases. We examine cultural influences on gender representation and career advancement in psychology, economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology. We make interdisciplinary comparisons of career trajectories and salaries using national data, documenting patterns across the social sciences. For example, women economists face gendered standards in publishing, and women political scientists are less likely to have their work cited than men. Furthermore, data show that salaries become stagnant as the representation of women in these fields increases. These disparities reflect cultural biases in perceptions of women's competence stemming from social role theory. We discuss best practices to address these problems, focusing on the ADVANCE organizational change programs funded by the National Science Foundation that target (a) improving academic climate, (b) providing professional development, and (c) fostering social networking. Federally supported interventions can reveal systemic gender biases in academia and reduce gender disparities for women academics in the social sciences.

"Broad" Impact: Perceptions of Sex/Gender-Related Psychology Journals

Because men are overrepresented within positions of power, men are perceived as the default in academia (androcentrism). Androcentric bias emerges whereby research by men and/or dominated by men is perceived as higher quality and gains more attention. We examined if these androcentric biases materialize within fields that study bias (psychology). How do individuals in close contact with psychology view psychology research outlets (i.e., journals) with titles including the words women, gender, sex, or feminism (sex/gender-related) or contain the words men or masculinity (men-related; Study 1) versus psychology journals that publish other-specialized research, and do these perceptions differ in the general public? While the men-related journal was less meritorious than its other-specialty journal, evidence emerged supporting androcentric bias such that the men-related journal was more favorable than the other sex/gender-related journals (Study 1). Further, undergraduate men taking psychology classes rated sex/gender-related versus other-specialty journals as less favorable, were less likely to recommend subscription (Studies 1-2), and rated the journals as lower quality (Study 2 only). Low endorsement of feminist ideology was associated with less support for sex/gender-related journals versus matched other-specialty journals (Studies 1-2). Decreased subscription recommendations for sex/gender-related journals (and the men-related journal) were mediated by decreased favorability and quality beliefs, especially for men (for the sex/gender-related journals) and those low in feminist ideology (Studies 1-2). However, we found possible androcentric-interest within the public sphere. The public reach of articles (as determined by Altmetrics) published in sex/gender-related was greater than other-specialty journals (Study 3). The consequences of these differential perceptions for students versus the public and the impact on women's advancement in social science and psychological science are discussed.

Towards diversity in science - a glance at gender disparity in the Brazilian Society of Neuroscience and Behavior (SBNeC)

Gender equity is far from being achieved in most academic institutions worldwide. Women representation in scientific leadership faces multiple obstacles. Implicit bias and stereotype threat are considered important driving forces concerning gender disparities. Negative cultural stereotypes of weak scientific performance, unrelated to true capacity, are implicitly associated with women and other social groups, influencing, without awareness, attitudes and judgments towards them. Meetings of scientific societies are the forum in which members from all stages of scientific careers are brought together. Visibility in the scientific community stems partly from presenting research as a speaker. Here, we investigated gender disparities in the Brazilian Society of Neuroscience and Behavior (SBNeC). Across the 15 mandates (1978-2020), women occupied 30% of the directory board posts, and only twice was a woman president. We evaluated six meetings held between 2010 and 2019. During this period, the membership of women outnumbered that of men in all categories. A total of 57.50% of faculty members, representing the potential pool of speakers and chairs, were female. Compared to this expected value, female speakers across the six meetings were scarce in full conferences (χ²(5)=173.54, P<0.001) and low in symposia (χ²(5)=36.92, P<0.001). Additionally, women chaired fewer symposia (χ²(5)=47.83, P<0.001). Furthermore, men-chaired symposia had significantly fewer women speakers than women-chaired symposia (χ²(1)=56.44, P<0.001). The gender disparities observed here are similar to those in other scientific societies worldwide, urging them to lead actions to pursue gender balance and diversity. Diversity leads not only to fairness but also to higher-quality science.

Gender Representation in Speaking Roles at the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons Annual Meeting: 2012-2019

BACKGROUND

The American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons (AAHKS) has one of the lowest percentages of women members among orthopedic surgery subspecialty societies, having increased from 1.3% to 3.1% since 2012. Our purpose was to report the representation of women in various speaking roles at the AAHKS annual meeting over this time period.

METHODS

We accessed the 2012-2019 AAHKS annual meeting programs online and reviewed all paper presenters, symposium faculty, and session moderators. We recorded instances of women speakers and their degree and specialty. We calculated the percentage of women speakers, women orthopedic surgeon speakers, women session moderators, and women symposium faculty for the overall period of 2012-2019, and for each annual meeting.

RESULTS

Between 2012 and 2019, 33/877 (3.8%) of all speakers at AAHKS were women. Of these, 21 were women orthopedic surgeons, or 2.4% of all speakers. The proportion of total women speakers per year ranged from 1.7% (2017) to 6.4% (2013). Twenty-four of 492 (4.9%) paper presenters were women, and 12/492(2.4%) were women orthopedic surgeons. Four of 143 (2.8%) session moderators were women, and all were orthopedic surgeons. Five of 245 (2.0%) symposium faculty were women, and 0/245 (0%) were women orthopedic surgeons.

CONCLUSION

Although the percentage of women AAHKS members has grown since 2012, the small percentage of women orthopedic surgeons speaking at AAHKS has not. There were no women orthopedic surgeons included on symposium faculty over this entire period. We appreciate and encourage efforts to improve gender diversity among speakers at AAHKS annual meetings.

Deepening inequalities: What did COVID-19 reveal about the gendered nature of academic work?

This study discusses the gendered nature of the transformation of academic work, which has been accelerated by the COVID‐19 pandemic. We collected empirical material in spring 2020, at the peak of the pandemic, via 28 interviews with academics in Poland. The results illustrate the far‐reaching and lasting impacts of the pandemic on academia that reinforce existing gender inequalities and bring new ones. The study also reveals the invisible academic work, which is performed mostly by female faculty. This work, neither recognized nor rewarded in the course of women's academic careers, deepens the gendered organization of work in higher education institutions.

Gender disparities in middle authorship

Women increasingly occupy jobs in psychological research, but continue to face career barriers. One such barrier is fewer authorship and publication opportunities, with women often having fewer first authorships than men. In this research, we examine the overlooked role of middle authorship. Middle authorship contributes to various indices of productivity, while having lower costs. Study 1 looks at five years of authorship in two major journals in social and personality psychology. Study 2 examines publication records of all social psychology faculty in the Netherlands. Both studies find that women have fewer authorship possibilities: In Study 1, women were underrepresented as authors in academic journals, while women in Study 2 had shorter publication lists. More importantly, this tendency was exacerbated for middle authorship positions. Furthermore, the percentage of middle authorship publications were positively related to more publications overall. A focus on middle authorship highlights previously underestimated challenges women continue to face in psychological research.

The Future of Women in Psychological Science

There has been extensive discussion about gender gaps in representation and career advancement in the sciences. However, psychological science itself has yet to be the focus of discussion or systematic review, despite our field's investment in questions of equity, status, well-being, gender bias, and gender disparities. In the present article, we consider 10 topics relevant for women's career advancement in psychological science. We focus on issues that have been the subject of empirical study, discuss relevant evidence within and outside of psychological science, and draw on established psychological theory and social-science research to begin to chart a path forward. We hope that better understanding of these issues within the field will shed light on areas of existing gender gaps in the discipline and areas where positive change has happened, and spark conversation within our field about how to create lasting change to mitigate remaining gender differences in psychological science.

Proportion of Female Speakers at Academic Medical Conferences Across Multiple Specialties and Regions

IMPORTANCE

Women in medicine have been underrepresented at medical conferences; however, contributing factors have not been well studied.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the distribution of invited conference speakers by gender and factors associated with representation of women as speakers.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

This cross-sectional analysis used medical conference programs from March 2017 to November 2018 across 20 specialties in 5 regions (Australasia, Canada, Europe, the UK, and the US) that were obtained online or from conference conveners.

EXPOSURES

Gender of invited lecturers, panelists, and planning committee members for each conference based on name or picture and publicly available data on compositions of specialties by gender for included regions.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES

Outcomes included the proportion of female speakers (invited lecturers and panelists), the number of single-gender panels, and the proportion of female speakers compared with the specialties' gender composition. Correlations between the gender composition of conference planning committees and the proportion of female speakers were assessed. Multivariable regression models were used to evaluate factors independently associated with the proportion of female speakers at conferences.

RESULTS

A total of 8535 sessions (panels and invited lectures) with 23 440 speakers across 98 conferences were identified. Women accounted for 7064 (30.1%) of speakers; 1981 of 5409 panels (36.6%) consisted of men only, and 363 (6.7%) consisted of women only. The proportion of women speakers varied by region and specialty from 5.8% to 74.5%. In general, specialties with low baseline proportions of women (<20%) had a ratio of female speakers to female specialists greater than 1, whereas specialties with high baseline proportions of women (>40%) had a ratio of female speakers to female specialists less that 1. There was a strong positive correlation between the proportion of women on planning committees and conference representation of female speakers (r = 0.67; P < .001). The association remained statistically significant after controlling for other variables, including the regional gender balance of the specialty (odds ratio, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.04-1.15; P < .001 for every 10% increase in the proportion of women on the planning committee).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

In this cross-sectional study, the proportion of female speakers at medical conferences was lower than that of male speakers, and more than one-third of panels were composed of men only. Increasing the number of women on planning committees may help address gender inequities.

The Gender Gap: Who Is (and Is Not) Included on Graduate-Level Syllabi in Social/Personality Psychology

We contacted a random sample of social/personality psychologists in the United States and asked for copies of their graduate syllabi. We coded more than 3,400 papers referenced on these syllabi for gender of authors as well as other characteristics. Less than 30% of the papers referenced on these syllabi were written by female first authors, with no evidence of a trend toward greater inclusion of papers published by female first authors since the 1980s. The difference in inclusion rates of female first-authored papers could not be explained by a preference for including classic over contemporary papers in syllabi (there was evidence of a recency bias instead) or the relative availability of female first-authored papers in the published literature. Implications are discussed.

Shift happens: the gender composition in clinical neuropsychology over five decades

Objective: The current study utilizes five decades of data to demonstrate cohort differences in gender representation in governance, speaking at conferences, serving on editorial boards, and in scholarly productivity in clinical neuropsychology. Broadly examining gender disparities across domains of professional attainment helps illuminate the areas in which inequity in clinical neuropsychology is most pronounced and in need of ameliorative resources.Methods: Data from 1967 to 2017 were coded from publicly available information from the four major professional associations for clinical neuropsychology in the U.S. (i.e. INS, AACN, NAN, & SCN). Gender differences were examined in (1) speaking at a national conference, (2) holding an office in a professional organization, (3) serving on the editorial team for a journal affiliated with a professional organization, and (4) scholarly activity as coded from Google Scholar.Results: The percentage of men in the field significantly declined across time, whereas the percentage of women significantly increased; the number of women exceeded the number of men in approximately 1992. Gender differences in conference speakers, editorial board members, and research citations were greater in the earlier than in more recent cohorts of clinical neuropsychologists but gender inequity in conference speaking and editorial activities is evident in the most recent cohorts.Discussion: Gender differences in conference speakers, editorial board members, and in earning research citations have diminished over time, but early career women still face disadvantages in speaking at conferences and serving on editorial boards. We provide strategies to increase and sustain women's participation in leadership in neuropsychology.

Current Trends of Women Surgeon Speakers at National Trauma Surgery Conferences: The Trauma House Is Improving

BACKGROUND

An invitation to speak at a national meeting represents the advancement of one's career and indicates acceptance and the attention of the scientific community. Studies have revealed gender disparities across medical and surgical society meetings. The purpose of our study was to assess the current trend of women surgeon speakers at major national trauma surgery conferences during the last 4 years (ie, 2016-2019).

METHODS

A retrospective analysis of conference programs of major trauma surgery association annual meetings including the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST), the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST), and the Western Trauma Association (WTA) was conducted. Our primary outcome was the number and proportion of women surgeon speakers at each conference each year.

RESULTS

Twelve conference programs from three national trauma surgery association annual meetings were reviewed. A total of 2029 speakers were included; 608 (30%) of which were female and 1421 (70%) of which were male. The proportion of women speakers ranged from 22.3% to 41.4%. The number of women speakers increased each year from 2016 to 2019: (EAST: 25.2%-39.8%, P = .049; AAST: 27.1%-41.4%, P < .00001, and WTA: 27.8%-33.3%, P = . 0.573).

CONCLUSION

The number of women surgeon speakers at national trauma surgery conferences significantly increased from 2016 to 2019. The increase in women trauma surgeon speakers is encouraging and should be celebrated, but organizational leadership should take this information into account while extending invitations to surgeons for speaking opportunities and continue to promote diversity and inclusivity.

Gender Disparities in Awards to Neuroscience Researchers

Women in academia receive fewer prestigious awards than their male counterparts. This gender gap may emerge purely from structural factors (e.g., gender differences in time spent in academia, institutional prestige, and academic performance), or from a combination of structural and psychological factors (e.g., gender schemas). To test these competing predictions, we assessed the independent contribution of year of degree, institutional prestige (a composite of prestige of PhD school and current affiliation), academic performance (total publications, total cites, and h-index), and gender to the prestige of awards earned by male (N = 298) and female (N = 134) academic neuroscientists. Award prestige was determined by an independent set of neuroscientists. Men earned more prestigious awards than women after controlling for institutional prestige, year of degree, and total publications. But after controlling for total citations or h-index, no gender difference appeared. Mediation analyses revealed that the gender disparity in awards was mediated by a gender difference in total cites and h-index. There was a reciprocal effect as well, in that the gender disparity in total cites and h-index was partially mediated by awards. These results point to an indirect path by which psychological factors may create gender disparities in academic awards: gender schemas may lead to women's papers receiving fewer citations than men's papers, resulting in more prestigious awards for men than for women. Additionally, our results suggest that gender disparities in awards and citations may reinforce each other. Practical implications for promoting gender equality in academic awards are discussed.

Representation of Women Among Invited Speakers at Medical Specialty Conferences

Background: Gender-related differences have been found among invited speakers in select professional and medical societies. We examined whether similar disparities existed among keynote speakers, plenary speakers, and invited lecturers in a broad range of medical specialty conferences from 2013 to 2017. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed on 27 U.S. medical specialty conferences for which data were available on plenary speakers, keynote speakers, and/or invited lecturers. For each speaker, gender and degree(s) were determined. Fisher's exact test was performed to compare proportions of women among speakers to Association of American Medical Colleges' (AAMC) physician workforce data on gender distribution. Results: In aggregate, we identified 246 women among 984 speakers, significantly lower than expected when compared with 2015 AAMC data (25.0% vs. 34.0%; p < 0.00001). Compared with AAMC data reported in 2013, 2015, and 2017, women were significantly underrepresented in 2013 (p = 0.0064) and 2015 (p = 0.00004). In 2017, the proportion of women among invited speakers trended lower than AAMC active women physicians but did not reach significance (p = 0.309). Analysis of individual conference data stratified by year indicated that, while the representation of women among all speakers improved between 2015 and 2017, the representation of women among keynote speakers, plenary speakers, and invited lectureships was variable (including zero levels some years during the study period) and remained lower than expected as compared with workforce data for specific medical specialties. Conclusions: Evaluating for and improving disparities is recommended to ensure gender equity among invited speakers across all medical specialty conferences.

The Speaker Gender Gap at Critical Care Conferences

OBJECTIVES

To review women's participation as faculty at five critical care conferences over 7 years.

DESIGN

Retrospective analysis of five scientific programs to identify the proportion of females and each speaker's profession based on conference conveners, program documents, or internet research.

SETTING

Three international (European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, Society of Critical Care Medicine) and two national (Critical Care Canada Forum, U.K. Intensive Care Society State of the Art Meeting) annual critical care conferences held between 2010 and 2016.

SUBJECTS

Female faculty speakers.

INTERVENTIONS

None.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

Male speakers outnumbered female speakers at all five conferences, in all 7 years. Overall, women represented 5-31% of speakers, and female physicians represented 5-26% of speakers. Nursing and allied health professional faculty represented 0-25% of speakers; in general, more than 50% of allied health professionals were women. Over the 7 years, Society of Critical Care Medicine had the highest representation of female (27% overall) and nursing/allied health professional (16-25%) speakers; notably, male physicians substantially outnumbered female physicians in all years (62-70% vs 10-19%, respectively). Women's representation on conference program committees ranged from 0% to 40%, with Society of Critical Care Medicine having the highest representation of women (26-40%). The female proportions of speakers, physician speakers, and program committee members increased significantly over time at the Society of Critical Care Medicine and U.K. Intensive Care Society State of the Art Meeting conferences (p < 0.05), but there was no temporal change at the other three conferences.

CONCLUSIONS

There is a speaker gender gap at critical care conferences, with male faculty outnumbering female faculty. This gap is more marked among physician speakers than those speakers representing nursing and allied health professionals. Several organizational strategies can address this gender gap.

Public Discussion Affects Question Asking at Academic Conferences

Women are under-represented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Despite the recent emphasis on diversity in STEM, our understanding of what drives differences between women and men scientists remains limited. This, in turn, limits our ability to intervene to level the playing field. To quantify the representation and participation of women and men at academic meetings in human genetics, we developed high-throughput and crowd-sourced approaches focused on question-asking behavior. Question asking is one voluntary and self-initiated scientific activity we can measure. Here we report that women ask fewer questions than expected regardless of their representation in talk audiences. We present evidence that external barriers affect the representation of women in STEM. However, differences in question-asking behavior suggest that internal factors also impact women's participation. We then examine the effects of specific interventions and show that wide public discussion of the relative under-participation of women in question-and-answer sessions alters question-asking behavior. We suggest that engaging the community in such projects promotes visibility of diversity issues at academic meetings and allows for efficient data collection that can be used to further explore and understand differences in conference participation.

Progress and Prospects in Gender Visibility at SMBE Annual Meetings

Reduced visibility of women in science is thought to be one of the causes of their underrepresentation among scientists, in particular at senior positions. Visibility is achieved through publications, and through conference attendance and presentations. Here, we investigated gender differences in visibility at the annual meetings of the Society of Molecular Biology and Evolution. The analysis of meeting programs showed a regular increase in female speakers for the last 16 years. Data on abstract submission suggest that there are no gender-related preferences in the acceptance of contributed presentations at the most recent meetings. However, data collected on-site in 2015 and 2016 show that women asked only ∼25% of the questions, that is, much less than expected given the female attendance. Understanding the reasons for this pattern is necessary for the development of policies that aim to reduce imbalance in visibility.

Women's visibility in academic seminars: Women ask fewer questions than men

The attrition of women in academic careers is a major concern, particularly in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics subjects. One factor that can contribute to the attrition is the lack of visible role models for women in academia. At early career stages, the behaviour of the local community may play a formative role in identifying ingroup role models, shaping women’s impressions of whether or not they can be successful in academia. One common and formative setting to observe role models is the local departmental academic seminar, talk, or presentation. We thus quantified women’s visibility through the question-asking behaviour of academics at seminars using observations and an online survey. From the survey responses of over 600 academics in 20 countries, we found that women reported asking fewer questions after seminars compared to men. This impression was supported by observational data from almost 250 seminars in 10 countries: women audience members asked absolutely and proportionally fewer questions than male audience members. When asked why they did not ask questions when they wanted to, women, more than men, endorsed internal factors (e.g., not working up the nerve). However, our observations suggest that structural factors might also play a role; when a man was the first to ask a question, or there were fewer questions, women asked proportionally fewer questions. Attempts to counteract the latter effect by manipulating the time for questions (in an effort to provoke more questions) in two departments were unsuccessful. We propose alternative recommendations for creating an environment that makes everyone feel more comfortable to ask questions, thus promoting equal visibility for women and members of other less visible groups.