Gender Dynamics and Novelty Claims in Science: Three Essays on Impact, Uncertainty, and Retraction

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the impact of researchers’ gender and their use of novelty claims on the reception of scientific papers, furthering the understanding of how scientific knowledge is socially constructed and addressing factors that contribute to enduring inequalities in science. By focusing on novelty claims as a rhetorical strategy actively employed by authors to frame their research as novel and important, this work shifts the focus from the inherent novelty of scientific work to the role of novelty claims in shaping the perception of research.Article 1 examines how gender and the presentation of novelty in research influence scientific impact across disciplines. Controlling for the intrinsic novelty of the research, I find that both male first authors and male last authors are more likely to assert novelty of their works, and this increases subsequent scientific impact of their research. In Humanities and Social Sciences, however, there is no evidence of a gender gap in impact nor mediation effects of novelty claims. These findings offer a comprehensive view of the way gender disparities in scientific impact are reinforced and suggest the need for discipline-specific interventions. Article 2 investigates how scientists view new discoveries as facts or mere possibilities during crises like the recent pandemic. Using computational text analysis and data from the Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG), this study finds that research papers with female last authors are often seen as more uncertain than those by male last authors. Interestingly, papers that claim that they are novel face less uncertainty, but this pattern holds only for male-authored papers. The findings highlight the need for equitable evaluation in scientific research, given its profound implications for policy and intervention strategies during crises. Article 3 explores whether novelty claims and the gender of the first author affect the likelihood of retractions, corrections, and expressions of concern in high-impact journals, specifically Nature and Science. By joining data from MAG and Retraction Watch, I find that papers with more novelty claims face an increased risk of retraction in Humanities and Social Sciences, while papers whose first author is female experience an increased likelihood of having corrections or expressions of concerns about their work published. The results suggest that authors who emphasize the innovative nature of their work, and authors who are female, have their work scrutinized more than their counterparts. This dissertation advances our understanding of the social dynamics underlying the evaluation and recognition of scientific works by shedding light on the relationship between gender, novelty claims, and the reception of scientific papers. The findings highlight the unintended consequences of the emphasis on novelty and the gender bias in scientific evaluation, underscoring the need for equitable evaluation and a critical examination of how gender bias and the drive for novelty influence the reception of scientific work.