I forgot that you existed: Role of memory accessibility in the gender citation gap.

Abstract

Recent studies have found a citation gap in psychology favoring men. This citation gap is subsequently reflected in differences in h-index scores, a crude measure but important one for impact on career advancement. We examine a potential reason for the gap: that male researchers are more likely to come to mind than female researchers (i.e., a difference in memory accessibility). In a survey, faculty from psychology departments in R1 institutions in the United States listed up to five names they considered experts in their field and up to five names they considered rising stars (defined as pretenure) in their field. Results revealed that the proportion of female experts recalled by women generally matched the percentage of more senior female faculty at R1 institutions, whereas the proportion recalled by men was much lower as compared to this baseline. With rising stars, we observed both underrepresentation of women from male participants and, unexpectedly, overrepresentation of women from female participants, as compared to the percentage of more junior female faculty at R1 institutions. For both experts and rising stars, male names were also more likely to be generated earlier in lists by male respondents, but women did not vary in the order in which they listed women versus men. Despite the differences in recall observed in our data, there was no such gap in name recognition, suggesting that the gap is one of accessibility-who comes to mind. Implications and recommendations for psychology researchers are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).