Assessing Gender Bias in Particle Physics and Social Science Recommendations for Academic Jobs

We investigated gender bias in letters of recommendation as a possible cause of the under-representation of women in Experimental Particle Physics (EPP), where about 15% of faculty are female -- well below the 60% level in psychology and sociology. We analyzed 2,206 letters in EPP and these social s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Bernstein, R H, Macy, M W, Cameron, C J, Williams-Ceci, S, Williams, W M, Ceci, S J
Format Paper Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 17.02.2022
Subjects
Bias
Gender
Gender aspects
Human bias
Linguistics
Men
Particle physics
Physicists
Physics - Physics and Society
Social sciences
Women
Words (language)
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Summary:We investigated gender bias in letters of recommendation as a possible cause of the under-representation of women in Experimental Particle Physics (EPP), where about 15% of faculty are female -- well below the 60% level in psychology and sociology. We analyzed 2,206 letters in EPP and these social sciences using standard lexical measures as well as two new measures: author status and an open-ended search for gendered language. In contrast to former studies, women were not depicted as more communal, less agentic, or less standout. Lexical measures revealed few gender differences in either discipline. The open-ended analysis revealed disparities favoring women in social science and men in EPP. However, female EPP candidates were characterized as "brilliant" in nearly three times as many letters as men.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2111.09774