Trial reportProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2018
How gender determines the way we speak about professionals.
Trial report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
What it found
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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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Professional Title Use and Gender Representation During Grand Rounds and Invited Lectureships Across Specialties.The Permanente journal · 2025Observational
- Gender differences in resume language and gender gaps in salary expectations.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Gender rating gap in online reviews.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Examining the replicability of online experiments selected by a decision market.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Article
- Cognitive causes of 'like me' race and gender biases in human language production.Nature human behaviour · 2024Article
- Sex bias in pain management decisions.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- The Gender of the Sender: Assessing Gender Biases of Greetings in Patient Portal Messages.Journal of women's health (2002) · 2023Observational
- Quantifying gender biases towards politicians on Reddit.PloS one · 2022Article
- Gender inequities in the online dissemination of scholars' work.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Having female role models correlates with PhD students' attitudes toward their own academic success.PloS one · 2021Article
- Twelve Principles Trainees, PIs, Departments, and Faculties Can Use to Reduce Bias and Discrimination in STEM.ACS central science · 2020Article
- Inequity and Women Physicians: Time to Change Millennia of Societal Beliefs.The Permanente journal · 2020Article
- In some professions, women have become well represented, yet gender bias persists-Perpetuated by those who think it is not happening.Science advances · 2020Article
- Implicit Gender Bias in Linguistic Descriptions for Expected Events: The Cases of the 2016 United States and 2017 United Kingdom Elections.Psychological science · 2020Article
- Words, images and gender: Lessons from a survey on the public perception of synthetic biology and related disciplines.EMBO reports · 2019Article
- Speaking of gender bias.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
- The changing career trajectories of new parents in STEM.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
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
Gender inequality persists in many professions, particularly in high-status fields, such as science, technology, engineering, and math. We report evidence of a form of gender bias that may contribute to this state: gender influences the way that people speak about professionals. When discussing professionals or their work, it is common to refer to them by surname alone (e.g., "Darwin developed the theory of evolution"). We present evidence that people are more likely to refer to male than female professionals in this way. This gender bias emerges in archival data across domains; students reviewing professors online and pundits discussing politicians on the radio are more likely to use surname when speaking about a man (vs. a woman). Participants' self-reported references also indicate a preference for using surname when speaking about male (vs. female) scientists, authors, and others. Finally, experimental evidence provides convergent evidence: participants writing about a fictional male scientist are more likely to refer to him by surname than participants writing about an otherwise identical female scientist. We find that, on average, people are over twice as likely to refer to male professionals by surname than female professionals. Critically, we identified consequences of this gender bias in speaking about professionals. Researchers referred to by surname are judged as more famous and eminent. They are consequently seen as higher status and more deserving of eminence-related benefits and awards. For instance, scientists referred to by surname were seen as 14% more deserving of a National Science Foundation career award.
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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.