PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Recommendation letters may be costing women jobs, promotions

Women described in social terms that hurt likelihood of being hired

2010-11-10
(Press-News.org) A recommendation letter could be the chute in a woman's career ladder, according to ongoing research at Rice University. The comprehensive study shows that qualities mentioned in recommendation letters for women differ sharply from those for men, and those differences may be costing women jobs and promotions in academia and medicine.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, Rice University professors Michelle Hebl and Randi Martin and graduate student Juan Madera, now an assistant professor at the University of Houston, reviewed 624 letters of recommendation for 194 applicants for eight junior faculty positions at a U.S. university. They found that letter writers conformed to traditional gender schemas when describing candidates. Female candidates were described in more communal (social or emotive) terms and male candidates in more agentic (active or assertive) terms.

A further aspect of the study involved rating the strength of the letters, or the likelihood the candidate would be hired based on the letter. The research team removed names and personal pronouns from the letters and asked faculty members to evaluate them. The researchers controlled for such variables as the number of years candidates were in graduate school, the number of papers they had published, the number of publications on which they were the lead author, the number of honors they received, the number of years of postdoctoral education, the position applied for and the number of courses taught.

"We found that being communal is not valued in academia," said Martin, the Elma Schneider Professor of Psychology at Rice. "The more communal characteristics mentioned, the lower the evaluation of the candidate."

A follow-up study funded by the National Institutes of Health is under way and includes applicants for faculty and research positions at medical schools. In the new study, enough applicants and positions will be included so that the researchers can use the actual decisions of search committees to determine the influence of letters' communal and agentic terms in the hiring decisions.

Words in the communal category included adjectives such as affectionate, helpful, kind, sympathetic, nurturing, tactful and agreeable, and behaviors such as helping others, taking direction well and maintaining relationships. Agentic adjectives included words such as confident, aggressive, ambitious, dominant, forceful, independent, daring, outspoken and intellectual, and behaviors such as speaking assertively, influencing others and initiating tasks.

"Communal characteristics mediate the relationship between gender and hiring decisions in academia, which suggests that gender norm stereotypes can influence hireability ratings of applicants," Martin said.

The "pipeline shortage of women" in academia is a well-known and researched phenomenon, but this study is the first of its kind to examine the recommendation letter's role in contributing to the disparity and evaluate it using inferential statistics and objective measures. It's also the first study to show that gender differences in letters actually affect judgments of hireability.

"This research not only has important implications for women in academia but also for women in management and leadership roles," said Hebl, professor of psychology and management at Rice. "A large body of research suggests that communality is not perceived to be congruent with leadership and managerial jobs."

The research team also noted that letter writers included more doubt raisers when recommending women, using phrases such as "She might make an excellent leader" versus what they used for male candidates, "He is already an established leader."

"Subtle gender discrimination continues to be rampant," Hebl said. "And it's important to acknowledge this because you cannot remediate discrimination until you are first aware of it. Our and other research shows that even small differences -- and in our study, the seemingly innocuous choice of words -- can act to create disparity over time and experiences."

INFORMATION: Martin, Hebl and Madera's study, "Gender and Letters of Recommendation for Academia: Agentic and Communal Differences," was published last year in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Applied Psychology. They are currently beginning data collection on their next study on recommendation letters for medical faculty positions.

The study is available to news media upon request.


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Lab on chip for membrane proteins

Lab on chip for membrane proteins
2010-11-10
Membrane-associated receptors, channels and transporters are among the most important drug targets for the pharmaceutical industry. The search for new drugs resembles looking for a needle in a haystack. Therefore new analytical techniques are required which facilitate the simultaneous screening of a large library of compounds across a variety of membrane proteins. However, this class of methods is still at the early stages of development. The group of Prof. Dr. Robert Tampé, in collaboration with the Walter Schottky Institute at Technical University Munich, has now presented ...

Quantum computers a step closer to reality thanks to new finding

2010-11-10
Quantum computers should be much easier to build than previously thought, because they can still work with a large number of faulty or even missing components, according to a study published today in Physical Review Letters. This surprising discovery brings scientists one step closer to designing and building real-life quantum computing systems – devices that could have enormous potential across a wide range of fields, from drug design, electronics, and even code-breaking. Scientists have long been fascinated with building computers that work at a quantum level – so small ...

How the dragon got its 'snap'

How the dragon got its snap
2010-11-10
VIDEO: This is a computer model of the growth of a snapdragon flower, produced by the groups of Professor Andrew Bangham of the University of East Anglia and Professor Enrico Coen... Click here for more information. "How do hearts, wings or flowers get their shape?" asks Professor Enrico Coen from the John Innes Centre. " Unlike man-made things like mobile phones or cars, there is no external hand or machine guiding the formation of these biological structures; they ...

MicroRNA controls mammary gland development in mice

MicroRNA controls mammary gland development in mice
2010-11-10
This release is available in German. Hormones, growth factors and several proteins ensure that development occurs in the right way, at the right time. The components that cause breast development in mammals, for example, were thought to be largely known. However, as a team of scientists from Göttingen, Frankfurt and Hanover have now discovered, in the case of breast development, hormones and proteins do not account for the full story. The scientists have shown that tiny ribonucleic acid molecules play a key role in this process. The mammary glands of mice lacking the ...

Scientists identify 1 cause of damage in Alzheimer's disease and find a way to stop it

Scientists identify 1 cause of damage in Alzheimers disease and find a way to stop it
2010-11-10
Researchers suspect that a protein superstructure called amyloid beta is responsible for much of the neural damage of Alzheimer's disease. A new study at the University of California, San Diego, shows that amyloid beta disrupts one of the brain's anti-oxidant proteins and demonstrates a way to protect that protein, and perhaps others, from amyloid's harmful effects. "Amyloid seems to cause damage to cells," said chemistry professor Jerry Yang. "We have reported in a very detailed way one potential interaction of how amyloid can cause disease, and we found a way to ...

Parents should talk about math early and often with their children

2010-11-10
VIDEO: University of Chicago psychologist Susan Levine has found that early exposure to mathematics words prepares students for success later in school. Click here for more information. The amount of time parents spend talking about numbers has a much bigger impact on how young children learn mathematics than was previously known, researchers at the University of Chicago have found. For example, children whose parents talked more about numbers were much more likely to ...

Sunburnt whales

2010-11-10
Whales exhibit skin damage consistent with acute sunburn in humans, and it seems to be getting worse over time, reveals research published this week in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Queen Mary, University of London and CICIMAR, studied blue whales, fin whales and sperm whales in the Gulf of California to determine the effect of rising levels of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) on their health. For a number of years scientists have observed blisters on the skin of whales. Now, using high-quality photos to give ...

Mountain ranges may act as "safe haven" for species facing climate change

2010-11-10
Swiss researchers studying the projected effects of climate change on alpine plant species have discovered that mountain ranges may represent a 'safer' place to live during changing climate conditions. The research, published in the Journal of Biogeography, finds that the habitat diversity of mountain ranges offer species 'refuge habitats' which may be important for conservation. The research, led by Daniel Scherrer and Christian Körner from the University of Basel, Switzerland, was carried out over two seasons in the Swiss Central Alps at 2500m. The authors used a high ...

Researchers aim to harvest solar energy from pavement to melt ice, power streetlights

2010-11-10
KINGSTON, R.I. – November 9, 2010 – The heat radiating off roadways has long been a factor in explaining why city temperatures are often considerably warmer than nearby suburban or rural areas. Now a team of engineering researchers from the University of Rhode Island is examining methods of harvesting that solar energy to melt ice, power streetlights, illuminate signs, heat buildings and potentially use it for many other purposes. "We have mile after mile of asphalt pavement around the country, and in the summer it absorbs a great deal of heat, warming the roads up to ...

The brains of Neanderthals and modern humans developed differently

The brains of Neanderthals and modern humans developed differently
2010-11-10
Whether cognitive differences exist between modern humans and Neanderthals is the subject of contentious disputes in anthropology and archaeology. Because the brain size range of modern humans and Neanderthals overlap, many researchers previously assumed that the cognitive capabilities of these two species were similar. Among humans, however, the internal organization of the brain is more important for cognitive abilities than its absolute size is. The brain's internal organization depends on the tempo and mode of brain development. Based on detailed measurements of internal ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Inability to pay for healthcare reaches record high in U.S.

Science ‘storytelling’ urgently needed amid climate and biodiversity crisis

KAIST Develops Retinal Therapy to Restore Lost Vision​

Adipocyte-hepatocyte signaling mechanism uncovered in endoplasmic reticulum stress response

Mammals were adapting from life in the trees to living on the ground before dinosaur-killing asteroid

Low LDL cholesterol levels linked to reduced risk of dementia

Thickening of the eye’s retina associated with greater risk and severity of postoperative delirium in older patients

Almost one in ten people surveyed report having been harmed by the NHS in the last three years

Enhancing light control with complex frequency excitations

New research finds novel drug target for acute myeloid leukemia, bringing hope for cancer patients

New insight into factors associated with a common disease among dogs and humans

Illuminating single atoms for sustainable propylene production

New study finds Rocky Mountain snow contamination

Study examines lactation in critically ill patients

UVA Engineering Dean Jennifer West earns AIMBE’s 2025 Pierre Galletti Award

Doubling down on metasurfaces

New Cedars-Sinai study shows how specialized diet can improve gut disorders

Making moves and hitting the breaks: Owl journeys surprise researchers in western Montana

PKU Scientists simulate the origin and evolution of the North Atlantic Oscillation

ICRAFT breakthrough: Unlocking A20’s dual role in cancer immunotherapy

How VR technology is changing the game for Alzheimer’s disease

A borrowed bacterial gene allowed some marine diatoms to live on a seaweed diet

Balance between two competing nerve proteins deters symptoms of autism in mice

Use of antifungals in agriculture may increase resistance in an infectious yeast

Awareness grows of cancer risk from alcohol consumption, survey finds

The experts that can outsmart optical illusions

Pregnancy may reduce long COVID risk

Scientists uncover novel immune mechanism in wheat tandem kinase

Three University of Virginia Engineering faculty elected as AAAS Fellows

Unintentional drug overdoses take a toll across the U.S. unequally, study finds

[Press-News.org] Recommendation letters may be costing women jobs, promotions
Women described in social terms that hurt likelihood of being hired