Men Set Their Own Cites High: Gender and Self-citation across Fields and over Time

Abstract

How common is self-citation in scholarly publication, and does the practice vary by gender? Using novel methods and a data set of 1.5 million research papers in the scholarly database JSTOR published between 1779 and 2011, the authors find that nearly 10 percent of references are self-citations by a paper’s authors. The findings also show that between 1779 and 2011, men cited their own papers 56 percent more than did women. In the last two decades of data, men self-cited 70 percent more than women. Women are also more than 10 percentage points more likely than men to not cite their own previous work at all. While these patterns could result from differences in the number of papers that men and women authors have published rather than gender-specific patterns of self-citation behavior, this gender gap in self-citation rates has remained stable over the last 50 years, despite increased representation of women in academia. The authors break down self-citation patterns by academic field and number of authors and comment on potential mechanisms behind these observations. These findings have important implications for scholarly visibility and cumulative advantage in academic careers.

Editorial boards of accounting journals: gender diversity and internationalisation

“…Research evidence, albeit from other disciplines (science, economics, management), indicates that men and women develop expertise in different areas of a discipline; favour different methodologies; and adopt significantly different behaviours in research and review processes (Addis and Villa, 2003;Amrein et al, 2011;King et al, 2011). Further, heterogenous groups publish higher quality research in higher ranked journals and with higher citation levels (by 34%) as compared to homogenous, male dominated groups (Campbell et al, 2013).…”

On the Biomedical Elite: Inequality and Stasis in Scientific Knowledge Production

“…Gender differences provide a paradigmatic example: laboratory job applications that have a traditionally male name are scored more highly by faculty members than those with a traditionally female name (Moss-Racusin et al, 2012), women receive overall lower scores on fellowship applications compared with men (Wenneras and Wold, 1997) and are cited less frequently than men (Caplar et al, 2017) (while men self-cite more than women (King et al, 2016)), and elite biomedical academic laboratories-which have access to long-term large funding sources and are likely to publish in prestigious journals-hire men over women at a higher rate than non-elite laboratories (Sheltzer and Smith, 2014). In light of this background, rich-get-richer effects threaten the diversity of the research ecosystem by concentrating resources in the hands of a few and doing so in a way that potentially amplifies existing social biases and hierarchies.…”

“Excellence R Us”: university research and the fetishisation of excellence

“…Given the strong evidence that there is systemic bias within the institutions of research against women, under-represented ethnic groups, non-traditional centres of scholarship, and other disadvantaged groups (for a forthright admission of this bias with regard to non-traditional centres of scholarship, see Goodrich, 1945), it follows that an emphasis on the performance of "excellence"-or, in other words, being able to convince colleagues that one is even more deserving of reward than others in the same field-will create even stronger pressure to conform to unexamined biases and norms within the disciplinary culture: challenging expectations as to what it means to be a scientist is a very difficult way of demonstrating that you are the "best" at science; it is much easier if your appearance, work patterns, and research goals conform to those of which your adjudicators have previous experience. In a culture of "excellence" the quality of work from those who do not work in the expected "normative" fashion run a serious risk of being under-estimated and unrecognised (King et al, 2014(King et al, , 2016; O'Connor and O'Hagan, 2015; University of Arizona Commission on the Status of Women, 2015; this is, in part, an explanation for the systemically underreported and poorly acknowledged and rewarded work of women "assistants" in many of the great scientific discoveries of the twentieth century). There is a clear case to answer that, absent substantial corrective measures and awareness, a focus on "excellence" will continue to maintain rather than work to overcome social barriers to participation in research by currently underrepresented groups.…”