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3-119 - Gender Inequality in Developmental Psychology

Sat, March 23, 12:45 to 2:15pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 3, Room 323

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Despite its incredible success at attracting women at the undergraduate and doctoral levels, the number of female psychologists in academia drops from over 70% at the doctoral level to about 35% at the full professor level. Why?

This symposium presents data that explores the gender gap in psychology in general, and developmental psychology in particular, using a range of novel and state-of-the-art methods to propose several hypotheses for the mechanisms behind this gap.

Paper 1 presents an analysis of authorship patterns for men and women from publications in 130 peer-reviewed psychology journals, including 14 in developmental psychology, from 2003 to the present, finding evidence of a publication gender gap: across all subfields, and even when controlling for a host of possible explanatory factors, female psychologists are less published and less cited than male psychologists. Paper 2 uses ORCID data to model the factors predicting who departs from particular academic fields, demonstrating that women tend to leave fields that have high expectations of innate brilliance. Paper 3 shows that across the sciences, and including in developmental psychology, men over-represent women in assessments of merit, such as who receives awards and invitations to speak at colloquia. All three papers discuss a variety of possible mechanisms explaining these patterns. Finally, an expert on gender stereotypes in STEM fields will act as a discussant, integrating these three papers and discussing future directions for gender equality in academia.

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