Gender differences in how scientists present the importance of their research: observational study

Abstract

Objectives: Women remain underrepresented on faculties of medicine and the life sciences more broadly. Whether gender differences in self presentation of clinical research exist and may contribute to this gender gap has been challenging to explore empirically. The objective of this study was to analyze whether men and women differ in how positively they frame their research findings and to analyze whether the positive framing of research is associated with higher downstream citations.

Design: Retrospective observational study.

Data sources: Titles and abstracts from 101 720 clinical research articles and approximately 6.2 million general life science articles indexed in PubMed and published between 2002 and 2017.

Main outcome measures: Analysis of article titles and abstracts to determine whether men and women differ in how positively they present their research through use of terms such as "novel" or "excellent." For a set of 25 positive terms, we estimated the relative probability of positive framing as a function of the gender composition of the first and last authors, adjusting for scientific journal, year of publication, journal impact, and scientific field.

Results: Articles in which both the first and last author were women used at least one of the 25 positive terms in 10.9% of titles or abstracts versus 12.2% for articles involving a male first or last author, corresponding to a 12.3% relative difference (95% CI 5.7% to 18.9%). Gender differences in positive presentation were greatest in high impact clinical journals (impact factor >10), in which women were 21.4% less likely to present research positively. Across all clinical journals, positive presentation was associated with 9.4% (6.6% to 12.2%) higher subsequent citations, and in high impact clinical journals 13.0% (9.5% to 16.5%) higher citations. Results were similar when broadened to general life science articles published in journals indexed by PubMed, suggesting that gender differences in positive word use generalize to broader samples.

Conclusions: Clinical articles involving a male first or last author were more likely to present research findings positively in titles and abstracts compared with articles in which both the first and last author were women, particularly in the highest impact journals. Positive presentation of research findings was associated with higher downstream citations.

Fig 1

Change in use of positive terms to present research findings in articles published between 2002 and 2017. Proportion of positively presented articles was calculated as a three-year rolling average and indexed to the proportion of positively presented articles in 2002 for the respective journal categories. Figure presents trends for research articles in clinical journals and broader life science articles indexed in PubMed

Fig 2

Gender differences in positive presentation of clinical research articles according to specific positive words, based on 101 720 articles during 2002-17. Gender differences in positive presentation were estimated from a linear probability model with a binary dependent variable (variable equal to one if positive word was used in an article’s title or abstract and zero otherwise) and a single independent variable that recorded the gender composition of the first and last authors (variable equal to one if both authors were female (“female lead authors”) and zero otherwise). In the figure, positive words are ranked according to the proportion of all positively framed articles that used a given word (for example, “novel” was the most commonly used positive word with a prevalence of 45% among all positively-framed articles). The word “favorable” included US and UK spelling.

Fig 3

Location of most common positive words in structured abstracts of clinical research articles during 2002-17. Percentages may not sum to 100% due to rounding. Based on 62 877 structured abstracts (81% of available abstracts for clinical research articles).

Fig 4

Adjusted gender differences in positive presentation of articles, 2002-17. Figure shows relative percentage difference in positively framed articles between articles in which both first and last authors were female (“female lead authors”) and articles in which first and/or last author was male (“male lead authors”) based on 101 720 clinical research articles and approximately 6.2 million life science articles. Gender differences in positive presentation were estimated from a multivariable linear probability model with a binary dependent variable equal to one if any positive word was used in the articles’ title or abstract and zero otherwise. Covariates included a binary variable equal to one if both first and last authors were female (“female lead authors”) and zero otherwise (“male lead author(s)”), indicator variables for year of publication and publishing journal, a continuous measure of use of positive terms in the article’s research field, number of co-authors, and percentage female co-authors in the article byline. Full regression results are provided in the appendix on bmj.com. Figure presents estimates for research articles in clinical journals and broader life science articles indexed in PubMed.

Fig 5

Adjusted percent increase in downstream citations associated with positive presentation of articles, 2002-17. Adjusted relative percent increase in downstream citations was estimated from a multivariable linear regression in which the dependent variable was forward citations (log transformed) and covariates included a binary variable for whether an article was positively presented, indicator variables for year of publication and publishing journal, a continuous measure of use of positive terms in the article’s research field, number of co-authors, percentage female co-authors in the article byline, and the gender composition of first and last authors. Full regression results are provided in the appendix on bmj.com. Figure presents estimates for research articles in clinical journals and broader life science articles indexed in PubMed.