Eliminating a key difference in how people refer to men and women could help even the playing field at work

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Eliminating a key difference in how people refer to men and women could help even the playing field at work

Barack Obama Hillary Clinton

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"Hillary Clinton" and "Obama" pictured.

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  • A study finds we're more likely to refer to women by their full names and men by their last names.
  • Using only someone's last name suggests they're more influential, the study found.
  • Previous research suggests our word choice is closely linked to our gender biases.

Across the globe, there are fewer women in positions of power. The reasons why are numerous and complicated, but researchers suspect there's one potential factor we haven't been paying enough attention to: our everyday language.

A paper from Stav Atir and Melissa J. Ferguson at Cornell University describes eight studies, which found that we're more likely to refer to men by their last names only and to women by their full names. What's more, the research found, people referred to by last name only are generally perceived as higher-status, suggesting that this linguistic phenomenon has meaningful consequences for women's advancement.

One study found that American radio hosts discussing current events were more than twice as likely to use a last name only when talking about a man than a woman (even once the researchers eliminated references to "Hillary" Clinton). In another study, participants read one-paragraph research proposals that referred to the researcher either by full name or by last name only; as it turned out, the researchers referred to by last name only were perceived as more famous.

As Atir put it to Business Insider, "our use of language reflects our biases and shapes them." Atir added, "it's easy to assume that choosing one word over another or one way of referring to someone over another is not going to have any impact, when in fact at least some evidence suggests that it might."

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Read more: Women CEOs are more likely to be dismissed, even when the company is doing well

Our word choice may be closely linked to our gender biases

Previous research has also found that word choice can have consequences for women's success in the workplace. According to a team of researchers at Stanford University's Clayman Institute for Gender Research who reviewed hundreds of performance reviews, managers use different language to describe male and female employees.

For example: Managers are nearly seven times more likely to tell their male employees that their communication style is too soft. Women, on the other hand, receive 2.5 times as much feedback related to their aggressive communication style.

And a 2018 paper published in the Journal of Business and Psychology found that letters of recommendation are more likely to raise doubts ("She is unlikely to become a superstar, but she is very solid") about women applicants for professorships than men.

Atir said one takeaway from the paper she coauthored is simple: When you're referring to men and women, try using the same naming convention. Though right now it's unclear exactly how much our language contributes to women's professional prospects (or lack thereof), Atir said it's worth trying to change it and see what happens.

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