Implicit Gender Bias Research Articles

Regional gender bias and year predict gender representation on civil trial teams.

There are documented gender disparities in the legal field. We examined whether gender representation on civil trial teams varied on the basis of (a) the degree of regional gender bias "in the air" and (b) time. We hypothesized that women were underrepresented both on trial teams and in leadership roles within those teams. We predicted that these gender disparities were exacerbated in regions with stronger regional gender bias and that these gender disparities attenuated over time. We coded attorney gender and case outcomes in real civil trials (N = 655). We created regional implicit and explicit gender bias scores based on the year and region of the case using Project Implicit data. Finally, we used order-constrained inference and Bayesian modeling to identify the best-performing models. Overall, women represented only 17% of attorneys at trial and 13% in leadership roles-indicating vast gender disparities. Gender disparities on teams and in leadership roles were more extreme in regions with high (vs. low) regional gender bias (teams: Bayes factor [BF] = 9,182; leadership: BF = 91,667) and improved over time (teams: BF = 6,420; leadership: BF = 3,495). Gender alone best predicted the likelihood of serving in a leadership role (BF = 1,197,397). Female attorneys were grossly underrepresented on civil trial teams. Gender representation on teams, but not leadership roles, has improved slightly over time. Culture may also contribute; women were less represented on trial teams in regions with greater gender bias in the air-particularly in leadership roles. Despite these slight improvements in representation on trial teams over time and in low-bias regions, gender disparities in leadership roles persist over time and levels of regional bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Perspectives of Female Physicians Who Lead in the Public Health Sector in India – A Qualitative Study

abstract Introduction: This qualitative, research studies female physicians in leadership roles to identify reasons for their underrepresentation. Materials and Methods: Fourteen female physicians in leadership positions in India’s federal and state ministries of health were purposively sampled and interviewed online. Results: Female physician face cultural, organisational and structural barriers. Familial expectations and imbibed, internalised responsibility to prioritise family hold them back. The rigid bureaucracy makes their workplaces non-inclusive. Microaggressions and implicit gender bias abound. A formalised training system and a performance-based reward system are absent. The enabling factors are family support, incidental learning, being emotionally intelligent and passion for their work. Conclusions: Action at the societal, medical education and public health system structural level can motivate female physicians to assume for leadership positions.

The Temporal and Directional Relationship Between Group-Level Implicit and Explicit Gender Bias

Explicit and implicit gender-science and gender-career biases have shifted toward neutrality in the past decade. Researchers speculate that these changes result from women's increased visibility in the science field and job market, but little is known about how the changes in group-level explicit and implicit gender-science and gender-career bias relate to one another over time. Building on contemporary models of group-level bias, this study investigates the temporal and directional relationship between group-level implicit and explicit gender bias between 2007 to 2016 using multivariate multilevel modeling. We found that lower group-level implicit bias in a previous month predicts lower group-level explicit bias in the following month. We also found evidence that group-level explicit bias in a previous month was positively associated with group-level implicit bias in the following month. These findings have practical and theoretical implications for understanding the bidirectional relationship between group-level implicit and explicit biases over time.

Gender-based linguistic differences in letters of recommendation for rhinology fellowship over time: A dual-institutional follow-up study using natural language processing and deep learning.

This follow-up dual-institutional and longitudinal study further evaluated for underlying gender biases in LORs for rhinology fellowship. Explicit and implicit linguistic gender bias was found, heavily favoring male applicants.

Reflexivity and positionality applied to medical practice: a study on implicit gender bias with medical students in a Swiss university

BackgroundAn array of evidence shows how the presence of implicit bias in clinical encounters can negatively impact provider-patient communication, quality of care and ultimately contribute to health inequities. Reflexive practice has been explored as an approach to identify and address implicit bias in healthcare providers, including medical students. At the Lausanne School of Medicine, a clinically integrated module was introduced in 2019 to raise students’ awareness of gender bias in medical practice using a reflexivity and positionality approach. The purpose of this study is to describe the gender bias that were identified by medical students, analysing their types, places and modes of emergence during a clinical encounter. It further explores how positionality supported students’ reflection on the way in which social position modulates their relationship to patients.MethodsAs part of the teaching activity, medical students individually reflected on gender bias in a specific clinical encounter by answering questions in their electronic portfolio. The questionnaire included a section on positionality. We qualitatively analysed the students’ assignments (n=76), applying a thematic analysis framework.ResultsMedical students identified and described gender biases occurring at different moments of the clinical encounter (anamnesis (i.e. patient history), physical exam, differential diagnosis, final management). They causally associated these biases with wider social phenomena such as the gendered division of labour or stereotypes around sexuality and gender. Analysing students' reflections on how their position influenced their relationship with patients, we found that the suggested exercise revealed a major contradiction in the process of medical enculturation: the injunction to be neutral and objective erases the social and cultural context of patients and impedes an understanding of gender bias.ConclusionGender biases are present in the different steps of a clinical consultation and are rooted in broader gendered social representations. We further conclude that the tension between a quest for objectivity and the reality of social encounters should be made explicit to students, because it is constitutive of medical practice.

Diversity Drives Representation: An Internal Audit of Gender Representation in Citation Practices of a Single Surgical Laboratory.

Large-scale retrospective studies have identified implicit gender bias in citation behaviors across multiple medical fields. There are minimal resources to directly assess one's own citation behavior before publication at a laboratory level. In this study, we performed an internal audit of our own citation practices and behavior, looking at the representation of authors by gender in our own bibliographies. Bibliographies were collated from our laboratory's publications between 2015 and 2022 with a single senior author, who was excluded from participating in this study. Bibliographies were run through a simulation originally constructed and used by authors from the University of Pennsylvania that categorized authors of each article by gender: man or woman, according to external database records. Of the 1697 citations, the first and last authorship sequences displayed to be 60.8% male/male, 10.1% male/female, 16.3% female/male and 12.8% female/female. Men-led articles within our laboratory cited 67.4% male/male articles in their bibliographies compared with women-led articles citing 53.9%. All laboratory bibliographies consisted of 77.1% male senior authors compared with 22.9% female senior authors. Our data confirm that a gender bias in citation practices exists at the laboratory level. Promisingly, these data also indicate that diversity within an individual laboratory group leads to diversity in representation; therefore, diversifying a team of researchers is prone to improve the overall work and success of the laboratory. We encourage laboratory groups to challenge their own biases by replicating their own results and discovering how these biases might be impacting their publications.

Challenges of Women Working as Leaders in Aruba’s Hotel Industry

Summary The hotel industry tends to underrepresent females in top management positions. Arguably, this problem is more acute in small island nations where few higher management positions are available due to the smallness of the sector. This case study explores female hotel leaders’ perceptions of gender bias in Aruba’s hotel sector. Semi-structured interviews were expanded with the Zoomorphic Forced Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZFMET). This method surfaces nonconscious memories and offers rich insights on study participants’ perception of the implicit bias barriers that they encountered. These self-reports include their cognitive and behavioral responses to these barriers. Results show how the female managers evolve as they overcame gender bias. Overall, the managers perceive that they have grown wiser, stronger, and more alert to the occurrence of implicit gender bias. Information © The Authors 2024

Dear Program Director: An Evaluation of Implicit Bias in Letters of Recommendation for Neurosurgery Residency.

Despite comprising half of medical students, women represent only 29.6% of neurosurgery applicants and 17% of residents, suggesting a "leak" in the career pipeline for women neurosurgeons. Surveys persistently show that neurosurgery programs identify United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE®) Step 1 score and letters of recommendation (LORs) as the most important factors in selecting applicants to interview. A previous study in neurosurgery found no differences in LORs. However, multiple studies in other specialties have demonstrated implicit gender bias in LORs, which may influence resident selection. Our objective is to evaluate neurosurgery residency LORs for evidence of implicit gender bias. Retrospective analysis of LORs for interviewed neurosurgery applicants at a single institution during the 2014 to 2020 National Residency Matching Program (NRMP®) match cycles. Letters were evaluated using Linguistic Inquiry & Word Count (LIWC) software (Pennebaker Conglomerates), and additional applicant data were obtained from candidate applications. LIWC (Pennebaker Conglomerates) output data included custom dictionary categories and terms that were analyzed using Prism 10 and Rstudio. Two hundred eighteen applications were reviewed for a total of 827 letters. LIWC (Pennebaker Conglomerates) analysis showed significant differences in word count (331 vs 297, difference = 34, 95% CI: 9-61, P = .008). LORs for applicants who were men were more likely to mention Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society (1.17 vs 0.778, difference = 0.4, 95% CI: 0.13-0.67, P = .023). USMLE® Step 1 scores were significantly lower for women (241 vs 247, difference = 6, 95% CI: 2-10, P = .004). There was no significant difference between letters for men and women for all categories evaluated in the linguistic evaluation. LORs are vital to the neurosurgical residency application process. The data exhibit some differences between the men and women applicants but few differences in their LORs, consistent with the results of the previous neurosurgical study.

Gender Bias in Artificial Intelligence-Written Letters of Reference.

Letters of reference (LORs) play an important role in postgraduate residency applications. Human-written LORs have been shown to carry implicit gender bias, such as using more agentic versus communal words for men, and more frequent doubt-raisers and references to appearance and personal life for women. This can result in inequitable access to residency opportunities for women. Given the known gendered language often unconsciously inserted into human-written LORs, we sought to identify whether LORs generated by artificial intelligence exhibit gender bias. Observational study. Multicenter academic collaboration. Prompts describing identical men and women applying for Otolaryngology residency positions were created and provided to ChatGPT to generate LORs. These letters were analyzed using a gender-bias calculator which assesses the proportion of male- versus female-associated words. Regardless of the gender, school, research, or other activities, all LORs generated by ChatGPT showed a bias towardmale-associated words. There was no significant difference between the percentage of male-biased words in letters written for women versus men (39.15 vs37.85, P = .77). There were significant differences in gender bias found by each of the other discrete variables (school, research, and other activities) chosen. While ChatGPT-generated LORs all showed a male bias in the language used, there was no gender bias difference in letters produced using traditionally masculine versus feminine names and pronouns. Other variables did induce gendered language, however. ChatGPT is a promising tool for LOR drafting, but users must be aware of potential biases introduced or propagated through these technologies.

Assessment of Gender Differences in Letters of Recommendation for Physical Therapy Residency Applications.

Letters of recommendation (LOR) are an integral component of physical therapy residency applications. Identifying the influence of applicant and writer gender in LOR will help identify whether potential implicit gender bias exists in physical therapy residency application processes. Several medical and surgical residency education programs have reported positive, neutral, or negative LOR female gender bias among applicants and writers. Little research exists on gender differences in LOR to physical therapy education programs or physical therapy residency programs. Seven hundred sixty-eight LOR were analyzed from 256 applications to 3 physical therapy residency programs (neurologic, orthopaedic, sports) at one institution from 2014 to 2020. Thematic categories were developed to identify themes in a sample of LOR. Associations between writer and applicant gender were analyzed using summary statistics, word counts, thematic and psycholinguistic extraction, and rule-based and deep learning Natural Language Processing . No significant difference in LOR word counts were found based on writer or applicant gender. Increased word counts were seen in sports residency LOR compared with the orthopaedic residency. Thematic analysis showed LOR gender differences with male applicants receiving more positive generalized recommendations and female applicants receiving more comments regarding interpersonal relationship skills. No thematic or psycholinguistic gender differences were seen by LOR writer. Male applicants were 1.9 times more likely to select all male LOR writers, whereas female applicants were 2.1 times more likely to choose all female LOR writers. Gender differences in LORs for physical therapy residencies were found using a comprehensive Natural Language Processing approach that identified both a positive recommendation male applicant gender bias and a positive interpersonal relationship skill female applicant gender bias. Applicants were not harmed nor helped by selecting LOR writers of the opposite gender. Admissions committees and LOR writers should be mindful of potential implicit gender biases in LOR submitted to physical therapy residency programs.

The Role of Surgeon Gender in Patient Surgeon-Selection in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery: A Crowdsourcing Analysis

Abstract Goals/Purpose Plastic and reconstructive surgery (PRS), and especially aesthetic surgery, is uniquely characterized by an increased ability to research and select their surgeon. As the increasing number of female plastic surgeons begin to establish themselves in practice, it remains understudied if gender or implicit gender biases is a variable in patient surgeon-selection. Wallis, et al.’s landmark paper in 2023 suggested that female surgeons exhibited a lower risk-adjusted likelihood of adverse postoperative outcomes, including mortality, hospital readmission, and major medical complications, although the precise mechanisms remain unclear. Currently, it is unknown if the public is aware of these findings, and if it these findings would impact patient-surgeon selection. Patient-surgeon selection may be an opportunity where PRS may lead surgical subspecialties in addressing implicit surgeon gender biases due to the predominance of female patients, and improved gender representation in surgical training programs compared to other surgical subspecialties. The purpose of this study is to explore public preferences and perspectives on the role of surgeon gender in patient surgeon-selection in PRS, and if knowledge of gender-correlated surgical outcomes impact surgeon selection. A secondary aim is to examine if these public preferences differ between reconstructive versus aesthetic surgery. Methods/Technique A cross-sectional survey was distributed through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (mTurk). Subjects were at least 18 years old and residents of the United States. Participants were briefed about hypothetical scenarios involving aesthetic and reconstructive surgical procedures, and then asked to choose either a male and female surgeon. They were then presented with an excerpt of Wallis, et al. (2023) findings, and reassessed for surgeon gender preference. The participant cohort was stratified by gender, classifying them as female and male responders. Differences between groups were evaluated using the unpaired t-test and Fisher exact tests. Multivariate logistic regression models were constructed to assess associations between plastic surgeon gender preference and sociodemographic characteristics. Stata statistical software (STATA Corp., BE, 18.0) was used to conduct all statistical analyses. Results/Complications A total of 547 participants were included. Of those, 310 (56.7%) were male and 237 (43.3%) were female. The mean age was 33.8 (SD 6.8) for the male group and 35.1 (SD 7.2) for the female group. Both groups had similar percentages of level of education (p=0.071). Significant differences were observed in race (p=0.004), ethnicity (p<0.001), U.S. region of residency (p<0.001), and religion (p<0.001) (Table 1). Both groups had similar percentages of previous PRS background/interest (M: 81.3%, F: 86.1%, p=0.164). However, female participants had higher percentages of aesthetic background/interest (86.1%) compared to the male counterparts (78.7%, p=0.033). Similar interest/background in reconstructive procedures was found between groups (M: 60.0%, F: 45.6%, p=0.222) (Table 2). Statistically significant differences emerged in overall preferences for physician's gender (p<0.001), as well as preferences for the gender of plastic surgeons conducting aesthetic non-surgical (p<0.001), aesthetic surgical (p<0.001), and reconstructive surgical procedures (p<0.001), particularly favoring the same-gender preference. A higher percentage of male participants believed that the plastic surgeon's gender impacts surgical outcomes (77.4% vs. 62.0%, p<0.001), associating better outcomes with male surgeons (91.2%). The majority of female responders favored female surgeons for better outcomes (63.9%, p<0.001). Following exposure to an excerpt from the Wallis, et al. (2023) published article, preferences for female plastic surgeons increased among both groups, with statistically higher rates in the male group (79.4% vs. 69.6%; p=0.010) (Table 3). Multivariate logistic regression analysis demonstrated that for aesthetic surgical procedures, female gender [10.65 OR; 95% CI (5.65–1.29); p<0.001], living in the Southwest region [1.88 OR; 95% CI (1.11–12.62); p=0.033], were factors independently linked to a higher preference for female plastic surgeons. Conversely, age [0.97 OR; 95% CI (0.94–0.99); p=0.025], and having a background/interest in reconstructive procedures [0.57 OR; 95% CI (0.35–0.93); p=0.027] were associated with a lower preference for female plastic surgeons in this category (Table 5). Following presentation of an excerpt from the Wallis, et al. (2023) article, Hispanic ethnicity [2.67 OR; 95% CI (1.31–5.48); p=0.007], residing in the Southeast region [3.12 OR; 95% CI (1.43–6.81); p=0.004], having a background/interest in aesthetic [2.05 OR; 95 %CI (1.16–3.63); p=0.014], and reconstructive procedures [3.86 OR; 95% CI (2.29–6.51); p<0.001] were associated with a higher likelihood of shifting preference towards female plastic surgeons (Table 7). Conclusion Participants demonstrated a predominant preference for surgeons of the same gender across aesthetic non-surgical, aesthetic surgical, and reconstructive procedures. Initially, gender biases affected perceptions of surgeon gender and surgical outcomes, particularly notable among male participants. However, this preference notably changed following exposure to a segment of published literature on surgeon outcomes based on gender. These findings support the importance of gender diversity in plastic surgery due to patient preference, and suggests that implicit gender biases in patient surgeon-selection persist, but can potentially be addressed with patient education. Rigorous future studies are required to expand hypothesizes generated from this proof-of-concept study, and should emphasize including non-binary populations.

The Effect of Bias on Employee Suspicions of Coworker Guilt and Likelihood of Peer Reporting

ABSTRACT We explored the association between bias and the perception of a suspect’s guilt in alleged workplace theft. After presenting a case to participants, we asked them to assess the guilt of four possible suspects: two Black (male and female) and two White (male and female). We measured implicit and explicit racial and gender bias, leveraging two implicit association tests adapted from Levinson, Cai, and Young (2010) and two established explicit bias scales. We found that explicit racial bias is significantly associated with the overall perceived likelihood of guilt of the Black male suspect, and implicit racial bias is associated with the probability of selecting the Black male suspect from among the four. These associations disappeared after we provided additional facts about the case and the suspects. We further found that implicit and explicit racial biases are associated with the likelihood of peer reporting in an external investigation. Data Availability: Data are available upon request. JEL Classifications: M49.

Illegally blonde: Performing femininity in the mediated courtroom

When facing criminal charges, female defendants face a difficult double bind; they are simultaneously judged for the crimes they have committed and for breaching socially defined boundaries of femininity. An unfair portrayal in the media may cause a crisis in any instance, but when the subject is facing criminal charges, the stakes are much higher. To appeal to the court of public opinion, female defendants must consider implicit gender biases by performing a type of femininity that is perceived as authentic and earnest yet appropriately moderated. These expectations are most evident in high-profile celebrity scandals as the defendant is measured against their public persona – even if that persona is entirely constructed. This article examines how dress affects the way female celebrity defendants are perceived in the courtroom and how attained fame and American mass media influence this perception as is evident in the cases of Alexis Neiers, Patty Hearst, Winona Ryder and Anna Delvey.

Video-Based Assessment of Microsurgical Trainees: An Evaluation of Gender Bias.

Gender bias in graduate medical evaluations remains a challenging issue. This study evaluates implicit gender bias in video-based evaluations of microsurgical technique, which has not previously been described in the literature. Two videos were recorded of microsurgical anastomosis; the first was performed by a hand/microsurgery fellow and the second by an expert microsurgeon. A total of 150 surgeons with microsurgical experience were recruited to evaluate the videos; they were told these videos depicted a surgical trainee 1 month into fellowship followed by the same trainee 10 months later. The only variable was the name ("Rachel" or "David") that each participant was randomly assigned to evaluate. Participants were asked to score each video for quality, technique, efficiency, as well as overall progression and development after the second video compared with the initial video. To focus on bias, these outcome measures were selected to be purposefully subjective and all ratings were based on a subjective 1to 10 scale (10 = excellent). The analysis included 150 participants (75% male). There were no statistically significant differences in scores between the "female" and "male" trainee. The trainees received the same median initial (1-month video) and final (11th-month video) scores for all criteria except initial technique, in which the female trainee received a 7 and the male trainee received an 8. Notably, 11-month scores were consistently the same or lower than 1-month scores for both study groups (p < 0.001). There were also no differences within either study group based on participant sex. Microsurgery practitioners overall rated both groups lower than those who do not currently practice microsurgery. Our study did not identify a gender bias in this evaluation method. Further investigation into how we assess and grade trainees as well as the presence and impact of implicit biases on varying surgical assessment methods is warranted.

Characterizing gender stereotypes in popular fiction: A machine learning approach

Gender representation portrayed in popular mass media is known to reflect and reinforce societal gender stereotypes. This research uses two methods of natural language processing–Word2Vec and bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) model–to analyze gender representation in popular fiction and quantify gender bias with gender bias score. Word2Vec, which represents the words in vectorized format, can capture implicit human gender bias with the geometry relationship between word vectors. BERT, a newer pre-trained deep learning model, is specialized in understanding words in the larger context it appears in. The research will compare the results obtained from Word2Vec and BERT. With book check out records from the Seattle Public Library checkout dataset–an ongoing open source dataset from the public library system of Seattle, WA–the research aims to identify evolutionary trends of gender bias in popular fiction and analyze consumer preferences regarding gender representation.

Analyzing implicit gender bias in Optics and Photonics at the predoctoral stage in Spain

Analyzing implicit gender bias in Optics and Photonics at the predoctoral stage in Spain

Comment on Implicit Gender Bias in the Clinical Judgement of Psychopathy and Personality Disorders among Licensed Psychologists in the USA

Comment on Implicit Gender Bias in the Clinical Judgement of Psychopathy and Personality Disorders among Licensed Psychologists in the USA

Autism, thy name is man: Exploring implicit and explicit gender bias in autism perceptions.

Males are around three times more likely to possess an autism diagnosis than females. For years this was explained by accounts that considered the male gender more compatible with the autistic phenotype. However, new research suggests that a lack of understanding and recognition of the female autistic phenotype, and a predisposition to associate males with autistic traits, could lead to structural inequalities that hinder the identification of autistic females. To explore how autism and gender are more widely perceived, the present study tested implicit and explicit associations between autism and binary gender using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and the Autism Quotient (AQ) presented alongside a male or female vignette. A significant association was found on the IAT, identifying an implicit bias towards males and autistic traits. The vignette AQ pairing also revealed some specific items perceived as explicitly male traits, while only reverse-scored items were perceived as female. These findings suggest that current perceptions and even metrics of autism are skewed towards males, which may hinder the identification and understanding of the female autistic phenotype.

Thriving and Striving: The Paradox of Leading and Following for Women Mid-level Administrators in the Community College

In this qualitative study, I explored the meaning that ten mid-level women administrators ascribe to the experience of being both a leader and a follower within the community college sector. Previous research indicates that mid-level women administrators are under-valued as leaders and followers despite their capacity and influential connectivity up, down, and across the organizational chart. Participants discussed their experiences through in-depth, semi-structured interviews and described the perceived effects of those experiences on their leadership and followership practices. Three overarching themes emerged from the transcript analysis of the narratives: leading with purpose; complications of following; and navigating an adverse work environment. Implications from the findings suggest that community college leaders at all levels will benefit from shared leadership professional development, interrogation of implicit gender bias embedded with the institution, and the reduction and removal of race-based microaggressions among faculty, staff, and administrators. By understanding the leading and following experiences of women in mid-level administrative positions in the community college, this study contributes to a broader inclusion of leadership beyond the privileging of senior-level positions.

Stolen Voices: A Linguistic Approach to Understanding Implicit Gender Bias in the Legal Profession

Stolen Voices: A Linguistic Approach to Understanding Implicit Gender Bias in the Legal Profession