Women in applied behavior analysis.
Women now publish more in ABA journals, but editorial boards still need your help to reach parity.
01Research in Context
What this study did
McSweeney et al. (2000) counted how many women wrote papers in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. They also counted how many women sat on editorial boards.
They looked at every issue from 1978 to 1997. Then they compared the numbers to other psychology journals.
What they found
Women’s authorship in JABA rose over the twenty years. The increase matched the trend seen in similar journals.
But the share of women on the editorial board stayed flat. The ceiling did not budge, even while more women published.
How this fits with other research
Kranak et al. (2020) ran the same count again in 2020. They found the authorship rise continued, confirming the upward line.
Rotta et al. (2022) widened the lens to eight journals and fifty years. They show the glass ceiling has cracked since 2000, updating the picture.
Mates (1990) helps explain why the 2000 board was stuck. Her study found female reviewers accepted female-authored papers six times more often, hinting that who reviews can sway what gets published.
Why it matters
If you serve on a board or nominate reviewers, look around the table. Ask who is missing and name qualified women. A short email can move the ceiling another inch.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The status of women in applied behavior analysis was examined by comparing the participation of women in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) to their participation in three similar journals. For all journals, the percentage of articles with at least one female author, the percentage of authors who are female, and the percentage of articles with a female first author increased from 1978 to 1997. Participation by women in JABA was equal to or greater than participation by women in the comparison journals. However, women appeared as authors on papers in special sections of Behavior Modification substantially more often when the editor was female than when the editor was male. In addition, female membership on the editorial boards of JABA, Behavior Modification, and Behaviour Research and Therapy failed to increase from 1978 to 1997. We conclude that a "glass ceiling" reduces the participation of women at the highest levels of applied behavior analysis and related fields.
The Behavior analyst, 2000 · doi:10.1007/BF03392015