A Model of Political Bias in Social Science Research

We respond to El-Hout et al.’s commentary on our paper ‘Men, Women and STEM: Why the Differences and What Should Be Done?’. El-Hout et al. challenge several aspects of the position we present in the paper and outline their recent work on the concept of ‘masculine defaults’: a plausible contributor to the gender gaps found in some STEM fields. For the most part, El-Hout et al. present our views fairly and accurately. In a number of places, however, they misdescribe them, especially when it comes to policy options. In this response, we clarify and expand on our earlier arguments and explore various interesting issues raised by El-Hout et al.’s commentary.

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“…17-19). As Ceci et al (2021) argue in their commentary on our paper, this is a common tendency in the area (see also Honeycutt & Jussim, 2019).…”

Section: An Overly Bleak Picture?supporting

confidence: 56%

Not biology or culture alone: Response to El-Hout et al. (2021)

Stewart‐Williams

Halsey

2021

Eur J Pers

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“…And because humans are motivated to strive for self-improvement, society might urge behavioral scientists to design self-help interventions that supposedly improve difficult to measure, complexly determined life outcomes such as happiness, energy, concentration, motivation, success, and self-esteem. Behavioral scientists who give people the information they desire are rewarded with book deals, media appearances, talks, and other forms of status—whereas research debunking such findings is often ignored (Honeycutt & Jussim, 2020).…”

Section: Behavioral Sciences and Socially Motivated Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Keep your enemies close: Adversarial collaborations will improve behavioral science.

Clark¹,

Costello²,

Mitchell³

2022

Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition

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Behavioral scientists enjoy vast methodological freedom in how they operationalize theoretical constructs. This freedom may promote creativity in designing laboratory paradigms that shed light on real-world phenomena, but it also enables questionable research practices that undercut our collective credibility. Open Science norms impose some discipline but cannot constrain cherry-picking operational definitions that insulate preferred theories from rejection. All too often scholars conduct performative research to score points instead of engaging each other’s strongest arguments—a pattern that allows contradictory claims to fester unresolved for decades. Adversarial collaborations, which call on disputants to codevelop tests of competing hypotheses, are an efficient method of improving our science’s capacity for self-correction and of promoting intellectual competition that exposes false claims. Although individual researchers are often initially reluctant to participate, the research community would be better served by institutionalizing adversarial collaboration into its peer-review process.

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“…One might point to weaknesses in any particular study, or worry about a general tendency to seek, report and cite only results that confirm a narrative of female disadvantage and male privilege (Duarte et al, 2015;Honeycutt & Jussim, 2020;Seager & Barry, 2019). Still, the sheer number of studies finding anti-female bias makes it difficult to maintain that there is no bias at all, even if the level of bias might sometimes be overstated.…”

Section: Bias and Discrimination Against Women In Stemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Men, women and STEM: Why the differences and what should be done?

Stewart‐Williams

Halsey

2021

Eur J Pers

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It is a well-known and widely lamented fact that men outnumber women in a number of fields in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths). The most commonly discussed explanations for the gender gaps are discrimination and socialization, and the most common policy prescriptions target those ostensible causes. However, a great deal of evidence in the behavioural sciences suggests that discrimination and socialization are only part of the story. The purpose of this paper is to highlight other aspects of the story: aspects that are commonly overlooked or downplayed. More precisely, the paper has two main aims. The first is to examine the evidence that factors other than workplace discrimination contribute to the gender gaps in STEM. These include relatively large average sex differences in career and lifestyle preferences, and relatively small average differences in cognitive aptitudes – some favouring males, others favouring females – which are associated with progressively larger differences the further above the average one looks. The second aim is to examine the evidence suggesting that these sex differences are not purely a product of social factors but also have a substantial biological (i.e. inherited) component. A more complete picture of the causes of the unequal sex ratios in STEM may productively inform policy discussions.

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A Model of Political Bias in Social Science Research

Cited by 31 publications

References 82 publications

Not biology or culture alone: Response to El-Hout et al. (2021)

Not biology or culture alone: Response to El-Hout et al. (2021)

Keep your enemies close: Adversarial collaborations will improve behavioral science.

Men, women and STEM: Why the differences and what should be done?

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