Anti-female science bias is 'debunked' by fresh study

"An experiment, first published in 2012, asked 127 science professors to rate fictional CVs which were identical except for the name. They found the applicant named 'John' was rated as more competent, hireable and deserved a higher salary than the applicant called 'Jennifer'. But the findings - which have been cited more than 4,600 times - have now been thrown into question after a new group of scientists decided to rerun the study."

"Researchers from Rutgers University in New Jersey asked nearly 1,300 professors from more than 50 American institutions to rate the same application materials, but again with a different gendered name on the CV. This time, however, the female applicant was ranked as marginally more capable and appealing to work with - and the more hireable of the pair. She was also deemed worthy of a higher salary."

"This, they believe, could be the reason that a leading science journal did not agree to their proposal to rerun the experiment. Nathan Honeycutt and Lee Jussim, lead authors of the study, said their application was rejected by Nature Human Behaviour. Dr Honeycutt said he believes they may have experienced pushback because the submission reviewers agreed with the original results."

A 2012 experiment asked 127 science professors to rate identical CVs that differed only by name and reported that the male-named applicant was rated more competent, hireable and deserving of a higher salary. A new replication recruited nearly 1,300 professors from over 50 American institutions to evaluate the same materials with different gendered names. The replication found the female-named applicant rated marginally more capable, more appealing to work with, more hireable, and deserving of a higher salary. The replication challenges the narrative that faculty gender bias explains women's under-representation in STEM and faced initial publication resistance before acceptance by Meta-Psychology.

Read at Mail Online