I, We, or no one: Does gender matter?

How do writers refer to their own single author work when writing about it? Do they use singular pronouns (e.g. 'I predict the existence of a 9th planet'), more participative plural pronouns (e.g. 'Our model fits the observed data'), or avoid pronouns all together (e.g. 'The paper examines tool usage by parrots')? Is there a difference between male and female authors?

In a previous post I looked at 60,000 Economics publications over 30 years to check what do single authors actually choose to do. The data shows that authors of more recent publications tend to use the passive form less frequently, and that more experienced authors tend to use the singular pronouns more often.

Should gender matter for the choice of pronouns? Recent research into gender and preferences has shown that gender can have a strong effect on behavior and choices. Women tend to seek less competition, take less risk, and avoid over-confident behavior relatively to men. In our case, if using 'I' and 'My' is a sign of (over)confidence, it is possible that male authors would tend to use it more often. If there is a perceived risk in accentuating your own contribution by using 'I', then female authors might be more likely to use 'We' or a passive tone. In practice, the opposite occurs:

This graph above shows the fraction of authors using singular pronouns over time and by gender. Female single authors are consistently more likely to use 'I' and 'My', and less likely to use 'We' and 'Our', than male authors. This result is highly statistically significant, even when controlling for other factors such as experience, citations, and journal ranking.

All in all, female economists are about 20% more likely to use single pronouns than male authors. What can explain this large difference in choice due to gender? the floor is open for suggestions!

I, We or no one: Who wrote that paper? (Economists edition)

Have you ever written a academic paper as a single author? Did you ever struggle how to find the correct wording to describe the paper? What do most authors do? Have that changed over time? What do experienced authors do?

Whether it was for a course assignment or a peer-reviewed article, at some point you were probably told that neutral and passive writing is preferred. You should write something like 'The physics of frog levitation is described', which should sound objective, stressing the subject discussed rather than the author doing the discussion. Another possibility would be to use first-person singular pronouns -- as in 'I describe the physics behind frog levitation'. Some feel that this choice overly stresses the actions taken by the author, overly glorifying herself. The third possibility is using first-person plural -- as in 'We describe the physics behind frog levitation'. This choice supposes to feel participative, as if the author and the audience are collaborating.