ArticlePloS one2014
Gender on the brain: a case study of science communication in the new media environment.
Article in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Impact of Personality Factors and Preceding User Comments on the Processing of Research Findings on Deep Brain Stimulation: A Randomized Controlled Experiment in a Simulated Online Forum.Journal of medical Internet research · 2016Trial
- 'I'm doomed!': audience responses to media reporting on the link between sleep and Alzheimer's disease.Health promotion international · 2025Article
- "Precision Medicine" and the Failed Search for Binary Brain Sex Differences to Address Gender Behavioral Health Disparities.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Review
- Why and How to Account for Sex and Gender in Brain and Behavioral Research.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Article
- Teaching About Sex and Gender in Neuroscience: More Than Meets the "XY".Journal of undergraduate neuroscience education : JUNE : a publication of FUN, Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience · 2022Article
- Media Representations of Science during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Analysis of News and Social Media on the Island of Ireland.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- The gender-binary cycle: the perpetual relations between a biological-essentialist view of gender, gender ideology, and gender-labelling and sorting.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Women and men in orthopaedics.SICOT-J · 2021Article
- "Mombrain and Sticky DNA": The Impacts of Neurobiological and Epigenetic Framings of Motherhood on Women's Subjectivities.Frontiers in sociology · 2021Article
- Editorial: Challenges of Interdisciplinary Research in the Field of Critical (Sex/Gender) Neuroscience.Frontiers in sociology · 2021Article
- Sex differences in gray matter volume: how many and how large are they really?Biology of sex differences · 2019Article
- Article
- Sex in Context: Limitations of Animal Studies for Addressing Human Sex/Gender Neurobehavioral Health Disparities.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2016Article
- Perils and pitfalls of reporting sex differences.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Review
- How the Public Engages With Brain Optimization: The Media-mind Relationship.Science, technology & human values · 2015Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Neuroscience research on sex difference is currently a controversial field, frequently accused of purveying a 'neurosexism' that functions to naturalise gender inequalities. However, there has been little empirical investigation of how information about neurobiological sex difference is interpreted within wider society. This paper presents a case study that tracks the journey of one high-profile study of neurobiological sex differences from its scientific publication through various layers of the public domain. A content analysis was performed to ascertain how the study was represented in five domains of communication: the original scientific article, a press release, the traditional news media, online reader comments and blog entries. Analysis suggested that scientific research on sex difference offers an opportunity to rehearse abiding cultural understandings of gender. In both scientific and popular contexts, traditional gender stereotypes were projected onto the novel scientific information, which was harnessed to demonstrate the factual truth and normative legitimacy of these beliefs. Though strains of misogyny were evident within the readers' comments, most discussion of the study took pains to portray the sexes' unique abilities as equal and 'complementary'. However, this content often resembled a form of benevolent sexism, in which praise of women's social-emotional skills compensated for their relegation from more esteemed trait-domains, such as rationality and productivity. The paper suggests that embedding these stereotype patterns in neuroscience may intensify their rhetorical potency by lending them the epistemic authority of science. It argues that the neuroscience of sex difference does not merely reflect, but can actively shape the gender norms of contemporary society.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.