Publication patterns of women in behavioral and developmental psychology.

摘要

In the ever growing field of psychology, women are quickly becoming the majority of students in, and graduates of, university programs around the world. Because women tend to work in applied fields, a concern is that they will publish less than men, with a resulting decline in the knowledge base of psychology. Previous research has indicated that women outnumber men in psychology programs at universities in North America. However women are not increasing their relative proportion of authorships, especially of first authorships, in key journals in their respective fields. I examined changes over time of female versus male publications in two behavior analytic journals (one experimental and one applied), and two developmental journals (control comparisons). Finally I examined gender differences in higher positions in publishing (such as editors, associate editors, and members of editorial boards) in the behavioral journals. My research provided more extensive data than previous studies, achieved more accurate identification of authors' names, and attempted to examine relative rates of rejection in these journals to determine if women's submissions were being rejected more often than men's. Results indicated that women have increased their overall publication rates in all journals over the last 22 years. Women are publishing at a higher rate in the developmental comparison journals than in the behavioral journals. In Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis women are participating as authors at a rate comparable to that for men; however in The Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior women still are only authoring 23% of the articles. Women continue to participate at a much lower rate in comparison to men at the higher levels of publishing such as editorial board member, associate editor and editor, in the behavioral journals.