Ideals of the good life and good science among high achieving men and women scientists

Abstract

Traditional gender roles and gender stereotypes assume different life and career priorities among men and women. Meanwhile, the science profession is commonly considered to abide by a universalist ethos and a meritocracy that is independent of gender. We examined whether men and women scientists held different ideals about the good life and about good science. Furthermore, we investigated if those ideals of good life and of good science were linked in the minds of scientists; and if the linkages differed by gender. This study used a structural topic modeling approach to analyze the interview transcripts of 108 women and 92 men elite scientists who had received highly prestigious postdoctoral fellowships during the 1960s and1970s. In the open-ended interviews, the scientists were asked to describe their ideals of good life and of good science. Regarding the good life, we found that women scientists focused more on enjoying life and relationships and less on intellectual stimulation, relative to men scientists. For good science, women scientists focused more on empirical procedural accuracy and less on basic and fundamental breakthroughs, relative to men scientists. Moreover, we found that women scientists exhibited correlations between life and science ideals, whereas the two domains were completely separate for men scientists. In conclusion, a gendered system of life and science ideals existed even among this group of highly promising scientists.