Authors’ names have ‘astonishing’ influence on peer reviewers: study
When I was an undergrad in college, I helped design a study on the role of gender perception in expertise.<p>We had a piece of text that the subjects (undergrads) would read and rate the expertise of. We had the same text but we randomized whether the name would be a commonly male name, a commonly female name, or initials.<p>We also randomized if they'd watch a clip of men's sports beforehand (men's basketball), women's sports beforehand (women's basketball), or no sports. And finally we randomized whether the person giving the subjects instructions would be a young woman (one of my classmates) or a young man (me).<p>Our small study showed what you'd expect- students- men and women students rated male writers more highly than female writers, and initials were right in the middle, though they tended to be more like responses for men.<p>The tester's gender made no difference that we found.<p>The sports thing made a measurable difference, but it didn't reverse the skew.<p>My 18/19 year old self was somewhat skeptical we'd find a difference, but I was totally wrong. It taught me a lot about bias and perception, which this study also shows.