Men ‘spin’ their studies more than female colleagues

Male researchers significantly more likely to say work is novel or unique in papers

Male researchers are significantly more likely to claim their work is ‘novel’, ‘unique’ and ‘promising’ than their female colleagues, a study of over 6 million papers has found.

A team of researchers combed through studies in clinical medicine and life sciences journals looking for 25 positive terms to describe findings. They found that studies published by male authors were 12 per cent more likely than female authors to contain such terms, a figure that rose to 21 per cent for high impact journals. Papers with more positive framing also received around 10 per cent more citations.