Peer Review History
Original SubmissionMarch 21, 2020 |
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PONE-D-20-08183 Stereotyping in the digital age: Male is „ingenious“, female is „beautiful" PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Meier, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 21 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 2. In your Methods section, please include additional information about your dataset and ensure that you have included a statement specifying whether the collection method complied with the terms and conditions for the websites from which you have collected data. 3. We noted in your submission details that a portion of your manuscript may have been presented or published elsewhere. [Part of the data (i.e. transcripts of TED Talks and a translated subsample) had been used in another manuscript (see uploaded copy) recently published in "Social Psychological and Personality Science". The manuscript presents a separate research question and the analyses are distinct. It can therefore be excluded that this is a dual publication.] Please clarify whether this [conference proceeding or publication] was peer-reviewed and formally published. If this work was previously peer-reviewed and published, in the cover letter please provide the reason that this work does not constitute dual publication and should be included in the current manuscript. Additional Editor Comments (if provided): Both reviewers are enthousiastic about your manuscript (perhaps they would rate it "informative" or even "persuasive" or "fascinating" ;-). I would like to highlight a few of the issues raised by reviewer 1 and 2. Reviewer 1 makes an important point about whether the way you approach the data-analysis really allows you to conclude anything about stereotypes (male vs female) or whether this approach is more model-based, and less about (cultural) stereotypes and assumptions surrounding gender. I am looking forward to reading your reply to this, as I find this to be a relevant consideration. I also would love to see, together with reviewer 1, a slightly more in depth discussion about the bigger picture is probably a good idea. I would assume this is a topic that interests a broad audience, and the way you interpret these findings and their meaning for how men/women are seen online could be rather influential - I think taking that step and putting those ideas out there with this paper is worth it! Reviewer 2, in addition to a number of interesting theoretical approaches which are likely to enrich your introduction and discussion, suggests two additional/ alternative analyses for your data; taking a new perspective on what gender incongruence might mean in your dataset (perhaps more related to topic than to the gender of the speaker) and taking into account that the use of analytic/dynamic langauge might also play a role/ be a confounding factor in your dataset : I am looking forward to seeing the outcome of these analyses. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: This is an very well conceived of and well written paper. I thought it was clear in its aims and transparent in its approach. The methodology applied is rigorous and the use of data very intelligent. I think this would make a fine contribution to the field. However, I do have some comments which I think should be addressed before publication. Line 254 – you say you collected the videos and meta data in March 2018, but what were the dates that the videos themselves were given / uploaded? I think this is important context Line 265 – I personally think it looks a little odd to give two decimal places to ‘views’ Line 295 – Can you expand upon why you chose the 1st of January to measure the age from here? Section around line 310 – Here you seem to suggest that the data dictionary you apply here is based on past studies which reliably predicted the characteristics of the speaker based on their language. That is, this data dictionary was not necessarily based on established stereotypes? If this is the case ( and if I have mis understood please disregard), could not the title of this paper be considered slightly inaccurate as it seemingly suggests you will be measuring language stereotypes rather than just established gendered language difference? I think these are different concepts so at the very least some expansion of this should be included. Line 331 – I think this is a potentially problematic definition of ‘academic’. Although rarer in recent years, there are still many academics without doctorates Lines 573 onward – If I’m reading this correctly, unpacking this does your analysis mean that if, at the aggregate level women garner less ‘impact’ by your measures but ‘female language’ garners more impact, does this mean it is men who deploy female language who confer the biggest advantage? Is there a way to clearly split this out to test directly or at least add some controls? It would be fascinating. I think this would really help enhance your already very good analysis. In terms of the conclusions, I think there needs to be a slight expansion of the bigger picture here. What does it mean more broadly that women speakers receive less positive impact for their talks but female language seemingly confers an advantage? Reviewer #2: I think this is a fascinating paper. The topic is important, and I appreciate the wealth of naturalistic data on both sides (speaker language and audience ratings). My only comments have to do with potential alternate interpretations of some of the findings and additional (in my mind optional) analyses to support or rule out those interpretations. 1) I was surprised to see that the gender congruence hypothesis (research question 1b) didn’t show any gendered language x speaker gender effects. It is difficult to interpret a null result, but I expected audiences to like feminine speech more in the context of a male or masculine speaker. TED audiences presumably go to the site for new and exciting information (“ideas worth spreading”). Thus they may appreciate it when a speaker’s language violates their expectations. That would at least be consistent with processing fluency research suggesting that in some artistic or intellectual areas (e.g., visual art or rap lyrics), audiences may prefer more challenging, disfluent stimuli to information that’s easy to process (e.g., Belke et al., 2015; Berger et al., 2018). Rather than looking at gender congruence (do men talk like men?), it might be more fruitful to look at congruence with the talk's area (do people from masculine fields talk like men?). Feminine language may be viewed especially positively when it violates expectations for the topic, regardless of the speaker’s gender. For example, neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED talk, “My Stroke of Insight,” may be as popular as it is partly because, contrary to expectations about neuroscience, it is very dynamic and conversational, focusing quite a bit on emotions, relationships, and abstract connections among all people (to be clear, I have not actually LIWCed that talk). References: Belke, B., Leder, H., & Carbon, C. C. (2015). When challenging art gets liked: Evidences for a dual preference formation process for fluent and non-fluent portraits. PloS one, 10(8), e0131796. Berger, J., & Packard, G. (2018). Are atypical things more popular?. Psychological science, 29(7), 1178-1184. 2) Audiences' positive views of feminine speech reminded me of Jordan and Pennebaker’s analytic-dynamic index and the cultural shift towards more dynamic thinking in the US, as reflected in the language of US presidents (citation [78] in the manuscript). As the authors note, women tend to use more dynamic language (more conversational, less formal; more verbs than nouns) and thus could be considered "the winners of this cultural shift” (pp. 30-31). Can you control for analytic-dynamic language without removing the essential components of female-typical language? For example, could you control for verbs or test verb rates as a possible moderator or order to disentangle feminine from dynamic speech? 3) To me, “courageous” seems less relevant to the “warmth” dimension of the stereotype content model and more like the kind of patronizing praise that emphasizes a person’s outgroup. TED talks typically focus on male-dominated fields, such as science, business, and activism. Even in social science or environmentalism, which are more stereotypically feminine or gender-inclusive, men often have more power or dramatically outnumber women at the highest ranks (e.g., full professors in psychology). Saying that a female scientist is courageous (but not ingenious) could be seen as suggesting that women must be brave (but perhaps not very wise) to persist in a field where they’re on the margins or atypical. It reminds me of the backlash to female-specific praise that’s sometimes seen in the media or real life (e.g., Serena Williams not wanting to be praised as a groundbreaking female athlete, preferring instead to be judged on her merits as an athlete irrespective of gender or race). More empirically, what I’m talking about is similar to research on leaders in male-typical environments giving women high praise but fewer resources (which not surprisingly elicits anger from women): Gervais, S. J., & Vescio, T. K. (2012). The effect of patronizing behavior and control on men and women’s performance in stereotypically masculine domains. Sex Roles, 66(7-8), 479-491. Vescio, T. K., Gervais, S. J., Snyder, M., & Hoover, A. (2005). Power and the creation of patronizing environments: the stereotype-based behaviors of the powerful and their effects on female performance in masculine domains. Journal of personality and social psychology, 88(4), 658. Is it possible to disentangle whether “courageous” ratings reflect warmth, patronizing praise, stereotypes about the degree to which a person belongs in or is typical for their field, or simply the topics of the TED talks (that is, maybe women are just talking about adversity they’ve faced more often than men)? For example, do you see similar ratings for authors from other marginalized groups, like people of color or people of atypical ages (speakers in their teens / 20s or 80s+)? Independent of exploring the “courageous” results further, it could be useful to code the talks for topic and topic gender associations (whether the topic is viewed as stereotypically masculine or feminine). You might either control for those variables or consider topic as another way in which gendered language can be congruent or incongruent. 4) I would be interested in hearing more about how you interpret the results for the “funny” ratings (where being male and using more feminine language are both associated with being rated as funnier). I am not a humor expert, but I think that humor research shows that funny things tend to be absurd, surprising, or unexpected. Is that what’s happening here – that people think men who use feminine language are funny partly because their speaking style is surprising? Or is the feminine language-“funny” rating correlation not moderated by speaker gender? 5) In the Method section, you note that, “We consider the gender score as a measure for gender style prototypicality in language. Negative values on the score refer to a more male-typical language style, and positive values to a more female-typical language style.” (p. 14) I think that measure is fine – it’s well-validated, and it makes sense considering that most demographic scales in psychology treat gender as binary (male or female). However, gender is arguably multidimensional, with masculinity and femininity negatively correlated but not orthogonal (e.g., some of Janet Spence’s research). To anticipate reviewers and readers who will see that unidimensional measure as short-sighted, it would be nice to see a section in the Introduction discussing the multidimensionality of gender and the challenges in translating those dimensions to linguistic measures that are based on binary gender labels. References: Eagly, A. H., & Wood, W. (2017). Janet Taylor Spence: Innovator in the study of gender. Sex Roles, 77(11-12), 725-733. Spence, J. T. (1993). Gender-related traits and gender ideology: evidence for a multifactorial theory. Journal of personality and social psychology, 64(4), 624. 6) You note that “TED coaches its speakers” (p. 31). What does this coaching involve? I didn’t see a reference for this statement. Is the coaching tailored? Do women and men potentially get different advice, depending on who prepares them for their talk? Are all speakers asked to play up their personal stories, emphasizing any adversity they have overcome (perhaps magnifying gender differences in perceptions of courage or bravery)? 7) This is more of a future direction than an idea that should be shoehorned into this paper, but it would be nice to be able to show that gender differences in “informative” ratings are factually untrue. Is there a simple way to automatically measure informativeness or information density in these transcripts (for example, through entropy or lexical diversity)? 8) Minor notes: On page 11, I believe that “gender-conform language use” should be “gender conforming” or “gender congruent.” There are some irregular spacing and alignment issues that should be corrected before publishing (e.g., alternating single and double spaces between paragraphs, centered paragraphs on pages 30-31). The abstract is relatively long -- it might be more effective if it were condensed. Some of the writing was a little informal and colloquial (“short end of the stick,” p. 26). I don’t mind occasional informality in empirical papers, but colloquialisms might be challenging for non-native English speakers. ********** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. 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Revision 1 |
Stereotyping in the digital age: Male language is „ingenious“, female language is „beautiful" – and popular PONE-D-20-08183R1 Dear Dr. Meier, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Marte Otten, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: |
Formally Accepted |
PONE-D-20-08183R1 Stereotyping in the digital age: Male language is “ingenious”, female language is “beautiful” – and popular Dear Dr. Meier: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Marte Otten Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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