Letters of recommendation written for women are more likely to contain words or phrases that raise doubts about job or education qualifications than letters written for men, according to a new study led by researchers at Rice University and the University of Houston.
The study revealed that, on average, letters written for women were more likely to contain a doubt-raiser than letters written for men (regardless of whether a man or a woman wrote the letter). The researchers defined “doubt-raisers” as phrases or statements that question an applicant’s aptness for a job. This language falls into four categories: negativity (directly saying something bad), faint praise (indirect criticism of someone or something by giving a slight compliment), hedges (cautious or vague language) and irrelevant information (going off in a direction unrelated to the job description). Examples of doubt-raisers are statements like “the candidate has a somewhat challenging personality” or “she might be a good leader in the future.”
Mikki Hebl, the Martha and Henry Malcolm Lovett Professor of Psychology at Rice University and a co-author of the study, stated that “I would suggest avoiding these types of phrases in recommendations if you are trying to write a strong letter and to be aware that they might be more likely to unintentionally slip into letters for women than men.”
Professor Hebl is a graduate of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She holds a master’s degree in psychology from Texas A&M University and a Ph.D. in psychology from Dartmouth College.
The full study, “Raising Doubt in Letters of Recommendation for Academia: Gender Differences and Their Impact,” was published on the website of the Journal of Business and Psychology. It may be accessed here.