Is this not perhaps extending a stereotype? Plus, the abstract mentions "to improve equity" whatever that is!
Two critical things seem to be missing from this study:
- The distinction between a review letter for a woman or for a man
- The distinction of which faculty the reviewed member belonged too
"When faculty members are being considered for promotion, they’re better off if their external reviewers are women not men. That’s because women write more supportive letters, a study suggests.
A research team examined more than 10,000 review letters submitted for 1748 academics who went up for tenure or promotion at six research-intensive U.S. universities between 2015 and 2022. Letters penned by women were more likely to use a positive tone and less likely to use doubtful language. They were also less likely to use pronouns referring to themselves, such as “I” and “me,” and more likely to use ones referring to other people. Faculty members whose reviews had a higher percentage of women authors were more likely to have their tenure or promotion decision supported by the university provost, indicating that the women-authored letters helped them during the tenure process. ..."
From the highlights and abstract:
"Highlights
• Gender biases influence the content of external review letters (ERLs) in the promotion and tenure (P&T) process.
• Women letter writers use less doubt language, fewer personal pronouns, more other pronouns, and a more positive tone than men.
• A higher proportion of women letter writers is linked to fewer negative votes at the college level and a higher chance of provost approval.
Abstract
External review letters (ERLs) play a critical role in the promotion and tenure (P&T) process. However, recently, scholars have questioned their validity, given the strong relationships between letter writer characteristics and letter content. Building on Madera et al. (2024), we develop a social role-based theory of how letter writer gender affects letter content and voting outcomes.
Results from within-candidate analysis find gender differences in letters written for the same candidate,
1) men letter writers used more personal pronouns (I/me/myself) and women used more other-pronouns (she/he),
2) letters written by women - compared to men - had a more positive tone overall, and
3) used less doubt language.
Collectively, this suggests that women write more supportive and candidate-focused letters than men in the P&T process.
Confirming this, we find that - controlling for school, discipline, scholarly productivity, and demographics - candidates with a higher proportion of women letter writers (i.e., lower proportion of men) have more positive P&T outcomes. These findings underscore the need for P&T reforms to improve equity in the external review letter-writing and writer selection process."
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