Women, Work and the Academy > Executive Summaries > Stephanie Pfirman

Women and Interdisciplinary Science: Promise and Peril

Stephanie Pfirman and Peter Balsam, Barnard College, Columbia University

Because women and men are different, are perceived differently, and are rewarded differently, they come to behave differently and are steered in different ways throughout their careers (e.g. Moir and Jessel, 1992; Steele, 1997; Valian, 1998). These differences between women and men might be expected to lead to differing approaches to scholarship. Socialized to be communal, build consensus, and be concerned with other's welfare, it is likely that women will appreciate research that has social value, will value applying research to improve welfare (e.g. Clough, 2004), will enjoy coming to grips with the complexity that relationships and multiple perspectives bring to problem solving, and will be interested in synthesizing and integrating information from diverse sources. Women may be drawn to interdisciplinary science, while career-oriented men, are less likely to be drawn to the unproven trajectory of interdisciplinary investigations.

Figure 1. A study by the Research Assessment Group in the United Kingdom found a small (5%) difference in the average amount of time that women and men spend on interdisciplinary research (50 vs. 45%) and but found a striking gender difference at the high end in the number of intersecting research fields. http://www.evaluation.co.uk/library/id/gender.htm

Here we analyze the opportunities and challenges that pursuit of interdisciplinary science pose to the advancement of women researchers. Confounding factors include the fact that many interdisciplinary fields are new, they connect science with society, and many interdisciplinary advances involve contributions from multiple participants.

Multitasking vs. Single-mindedness

When women work on a task, they tend to make more connections, while men tend to channel their attention (e.g. Moir and Jessel, 1992). Men look for the abstract and theoretical, dissociating it from distracting information, while women see a larger context and are better at understanding and predicting human action, and sensing motives and emotion. This ability to multitask and to consider other sources of information should stand women in good stead as they collaborate on work of social value.

Collaborative Scholarship and Assignment of Credit

Interdisciplinary research often involves working with others to pool intellectual resources. Collaborative projects provide women with expertise in associated disciplines, a collegial vetting and support network, a sense of community, and an opportunity to relate to others. Single authors are most likely to have their submissions rejected, while manuscripts with more than four authors are more likely to be accepted, but unfortunately, the pattern of citation rates relative to author number is almost the opposite of the pattern of acceptance rates (Tregenza, 2002). Two author papers were cited most with a linear decline in citation rate through 3, 1 and 4+ authors. Hence, although submissions with more than four authors are the most likely to be accepted, they are the least likely to be cited.

Results from psychological research on causal reasoning indicate that collaboration is likely to cause difficulties in assignment of credit. When the collaborators are well known, newcomers have to overcome the "blocking" and "overshadowing" effects of their ideas being attributed to their colleagues (De Houwer & Becker, 2002; Dickinson, 2001). Also causal attributions depend on the "relative validity" of a predictor, which means that if researchers have a career interruption while their colleagues continue to publish, over time their colleagues will begin to get the credit for the original joint discovery.

These general cognitive operating principles are related to the fact that women's ideas are frequently attributed to their male associates in meetings and publications (e.g. Sonnert and Holten, 1995; Ward and Grant, 1996; Valian, 1998). If women try to overcome this misattribution by claiming their ideas, they may be seen as boastful and experience a negative reaction (Babcock and Laschever, 2003 citing Heatherington et al. 1992 and Miller et al., 1992).

Interdisciplinary Research and Evaluation of Innovation

Interdisciplinary research allows women to break new ground, to move into areas where others are not working. This means that women do not have to compete head on with leaders in the field, and the field does not move as quickly, so is more tolerant of interruptions. This is attractive to many women who prefer not to compete, especially against men (Babcock and Laschever, 2003), and who have more career interruptions. However, there are also costs to this research path. Research on learning and cognition indicates that the impact of information on learning and memory depends on its "news value"Ñ how much it contradicts expectations (Dickinson, 2001). Thus we consider high impact research to that which violates our expectations. The stronger the expectation the more news in the violation But when there is no consensus on where a field is going, there are fewer expectations about outcomes, and advances are not as easily recognized as innovative by reviewers of proposals and manuscripts.

A second aspect of interdisciplinary research that reduces the assessment of impact stems from the very nature of that activity. Much interdisciplinary work, particularly in the early stages of a new field, involves exporting ideas and methods from one discipline into addressing a problem in a second discipline. While the scholars in the second discipline may appreciate the innovation, the scholars in the first discipline will not see it as anything innovative or important. Thus at least half of the intellectual domain touched by this work will see it as derivative.

Disciplinary research, with its well defined methods, language, and community, comes to a consensus about the value of a contribution -- frequently placing the highest value on research that is quantitative and/or theoretical. Because of the complexities of interdisciplinary problems, variations are more difficult to constrain and measure and research may not initially lend itself to modeling and the development of clean theories. As a result, interdisciplinary research is frequently not as quantitative or theoretical as disciplinary research. This too can be a source of a lower assessment of the impact of the work, and can present difficulties in getting it published in high quality journals, especially because many of the highly ranked journals are disciplinary. Publication rates tend to be highest in fields where there is agreement about important research questions, major theories and methods, and there are many journals (Creamer 1998).

Another factor to be considered is the lower standing of "applied" research or "problem solving" - which is at the root of many interdisciplinary investigations. Although this is changing, within academic culture, research that is theoretical, abstract, or valuable for its own sake remains the most prestigious (Frost and Jean, 2003).

Implications

Community and Leadership

When the interdisciplinary community is not yet established, women can help to build it. With their socialization in engaging diverse perspectives and soliciting input, women can organize workshops and special sessions at professional meetings with the goal of developing strategies to take the field in new directions. Agentic people - often men - tend to focus on differences between things and but communal types - often women - tend to focus on similarities (Woike, pers.comm.), which is likely to help them in building towards consensus.

Initiation and Implementation

Departments and funding organized by discipline make interdisciplinary research more difficult to initiate and maintain. Considerable effort goes in to finding an appropriate place to submit an interdisciplinary proposal, bringing together colleagues -- often from different institutions -- and then maintaining contact during implementation, analysis and publication. Because women often don't have the professional social capital that men do (e.g. Valian, 1998; Etzkowitz et al., 2000), women face challenges in getting members of the team to accord their joint work high priority and follow through with their contributions. This results in long start up times and delayed publications.

Interdisciplinary proposals and papers are hard to review: typically they are sent out to people with diverse backgrounds, who each come back taking strong issue with the aspect that they know most about, and wanting extensive background on aspects unfamiliar to them. This lack of consensus in reviews makes revisions challenging especially for women who tend to respond more negatively than men to criticism (e.g. Cole and Zuckerman, 1984; Roberts and Nolen-Hoeksema, 1989; 1994), and who are more likely than men to have their peers attribute their failure to lack of ability (Valian, 1998 citation of Swim and Sanna, 1996). Also, because women researchers are generally more involved than men in teaching, this detracts from their ability to implement revisions in a timely manner (as well as to conduct the research itself).

The complex combination of greater likelihood of negative reviews of interdisciplinary work, lack of social capital, and less time to devote to research, may mean that women do not resubmit proposals and ms. as frequently as men, and when they do resubmit, that it takes longer for them to do so.

Recognition as an Authority

Because women are frequently judged on process and men on product (Valian, 1998), the challenge is for women to position themselves as leaders as they build community, rather as secretaries, administrators, or simply hard working and selfless citizens. In emerging interdisciplinary fields, the peer group is often small, dispersed, and there are fewer influential colleagues - on campus or elsewhere. This means that the field is more open, with fewer steps to reach the top. But it also means that there is less of a community to recognize contributions. It is easy to characterize unfamiliar research as "niche" or even trivial. Since their authority is challenged more often that that of their male colleagues, women tend to be perfectionist in their publications, taking longer to get them into the mainstream press (e.g. Creamer, 1998; Valian, 1998; Steinpreis et al., 1999). Compounding this is the fact that responsibility for childcare and eldercare do not allow women to travel to professional meetings as easily as men. This has several effects: women are isolated from recent advances, they are not able to vet their research as completely, and as a result they do not get feedback that would give them confidence in the worth of publishing and alert them to the urgency of publication as competitors emerge (Creamer, 1998). As a result, women may delay publication until the field has caught up with them - and perhaps has actually passed them by. This is especially unfortunate, as some research shows that it takes a longer period of time and a greater number of publications for women to be recognized as meriting promotion or senior status as for their male peers (e.g. Valian, 1998). Because national standing is largely a function of recognition by colleagues external to the institution (Creamer, 1998), women should be facilitated to attend meetings and to present their research off campus.

Another factor related to the question of authority is the observation that venturing into new territories, by definition required for interdisciplinary discourse, causes high levels of anxiety and defensiveness, as people have to reveal ignorance and encounter intolerance (Armstrong 1980, Becher 1994). Presumably, these feelings would be particularly difficult for women who find their authority questioned no matter what discipline they are in, and who rely more heavily on outside cues than do men.

Promotion and Tenure

For all of the reasons outlined above, tenure, requiring departmental approval and recognition by influential colleagues, is particularly challenging for women. Many of the attributes traditionally associated with tenure are based on disciplinary research and are strikingly similar to those associated with men.

Figure 2. Selected attributes pertaining to scholarship compiled from research presented in Valian, 1998; Babcock and Laschever, 2003; and other references cited here.

These stand in sharp contrast with those associated with women and with collaborative or interdisciplinary scholarship. Additionally, senior scholars are less likely to recognize the potential of a woman: women tend to be evaluated based on accomplishments, while men are evaluated based on their potential (e.g. McCracken, 2000). Senior scholars, primarily male, are also less likely to go out on a limb to promote a woman who is often not part of their professional social network (Babcock and Laschever, 2003).

Outlook

Many of the issues raised here are changing. Funding agencies are seeing the value of researching complex systems. The system is more open to leading by consensus. Negotiations are increasingly less competitive and now more often focus on finding consensus and win-win solutions (Babcock and Laschever, 2003).

However, as long as the default is departmental and disciplinary with senior ranks dominated by men, collaborative and interdisciplinary scholarship by women will be disadvantaged and will require explanations, weakening its standing.

Does this mean that junior women should be advised to shy away from collaborative, interdisciplinary, and applied research? Or are there ways to overcome these concerns and use the advantage of synthetic, communal, and socially sensitive approaches to launch women into exciting and important research directions long overlooked because of disciplinary and departmental limitations?

Research Questions

Who conducts collaborative research? A study by Long (1992) did not find major gender differences in collaboration by (1956-1963) biochemists other than the women more often collaborating with a spouse). But the UK study cited above indicated that women scientists spend more time working alone (reported by Mitchell, 1999). Perhaps women work more often alone because men are more often involved in hierarchical structures with people working below them: the greatest disparity between women and men working alone is in the physical and engineering sciences (figure 3). Perhaps women work more often alone because they are not included in the professional social networks that men are. Perhaps women prefer to have the freedom to pursue projects on their own pace and in their own direction, without having to depend on others who don't accord their work as high priority.

Figure 3. http://www.evaluation.co.uk/library/id/gender.htm

Who conducts interdisciplinary research? Gather national data and assess by gender and rank. The UK study showed that junior women are more likely to work on interdisciplinary research than their elders - with the notable exception of the physical and engineering sciences where junior women are much less likely to. Preliminary work by Rhoten also indicated that junior women in the US were less involved in interdisciplinary Biocomplexity research than their male peers (pers.comm. 2003). Use the Citation Index to analyze degree of interdisciplinarity of a selected group of women and male counterparts.

Do more women than men have cross-program appointments (as indicated by Creamer, 1998)? Are cross-program appointments advantageous (access to more resources) or disadvantageous (visibility lower in any one unit)?

Is NSF's increased emphasis on interdisciplinary research correlated with, and potentially a result of, an increase in the number of women program officers? Women PIs? Women in leadership positions at NSF? Access NSF databases.

Are interdisciplinary committees led by women more successful in producing useful products? Engaging communities? Operations? Use GAO Gallup survey of Federal Advisory Committees database.

Do women lead more interdisciplinary special sessions at professional meetings? Use AGU database.

Is there a difference between women and men in resubmitting rejected proposals? Analyze NSF and NIH databases. NSF supposedly did a study of this and did find a difference.

In publications led by women, is there a longer period of time between initial submission and final acceptance?

Do women travel to scientific meetings less frequently than men? Do women request less travel support than men in proposals to NSF, NIH, etc.? Research NSF and NIH databases.

Is there a gender difference in invitations to give presentations? Research AGU database of invited vs. contributed oral presentations, also compare those selected for oral vs. poster presentation.

Do interdisciplinary tenure cases at Columbia and other institutions fare worse than disciplinary ones? Are the outcomes moderated by gender? Data gathered for Barnard shows a tendency in that direction.

Other research indicates similarities between women and under-represented minorities, and some have asserted that minorities are also attracted by interdisciplinary research. Are they? And do they face the same issues as women?

References

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Becher, T. 1994, Interdisciplinarity and community. In R. Barnet (Ed.) Academic community: Discourse or discord? (pp. 55-71) Higher Education Policy Series 20. London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Babcock, L. and S. Laschever, 2003, Women don't ask: Negotiation and the gender divide. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. 223 pp.

Clough, G.W. 2004, Opening Remarks by President Clough, Georgia Institute of Technology, ADVANCE Annual Conference, http://www.advance.gatech.edu/agenda04.html

Cole, J.R. and H. Zuckerman, 1984, The productivity puzzle: Persistence and change in patterns of publication of men and women scientists. In Advances in motivation and achievement, P. Maehr and M.W. Steinkamp, eds., pp 217-56. Greenwich, Conn: JAI Press.

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