We Need To Rethink How We Recommend Women On LinkedIn, Study Says

Forbes

a day ago

Reviewers use different words to recommend men and women on LinkedIn (Photo Illustration by Sheldon ... More Cooper/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
New research reveals that women are typically seen as concrete thinkers—task-oriented and detail-focused—while men are more often viewed as thinking more abstractly, focusing on strategy, vision, and the big picture. These beliefs about men and women even appear in LinkedIn recommendations, and they could have significant consequences for who gets hired, who gets promoted, and who is assigned the most menial tasks.
The researchers conducted six studies to investigate whether people tend to associate men with abstract thinking, such as big-picture ideas and strategy, and women with concrete thinking, which is more focused on details and execution. In nearly every study, the same pattern emerged: women were seen as more concrete, and men as more abstract.
The authors explain why this is a problem: 'When decision-makers perceive women as more concrete than men, they might pigeonhole women into administrative tasks that are low in status and power. If this is the case, then beliefs that women are more concrete than men could perpetuate gender inequality, with women being relegated to low-construal, low-status tasks more often than men because people believe they will execute these tasks more effectively.'
Previous research shows that people who exhibit abstract thinking skills are perceived as having more power, are more likely to be regarded as experts and have greater potential for growth than those who are more concrete thinkers.
In one of the studies, researchers analyzed written recommendations on the LinkedIn profiles of more than 500,000 professionals. They focused exclusively on the recommendation text, not the endorsed skills section. All of the profiles included in the study had at least one recommendation. The team then examined how often words associated with concrete thinking (such as 'detail' or 'exact') appeared compared to words reflecting abstract thinking (like 'visionary' or 'theoretical').
In the LinkedIn recommendations, women were once again more likely to be described with concrete terms, while men were more likely to be characterized with abstract terms. The researchers used different methods to analyze the text. First, they found women had 13% greater odds of being described with only concrete terms, and men had 22% greater odds of being described with only abstract terms. In a separate analysis, they found that words like 'detail,' 'details,' and 'exact' were more likely to appear near feminine pronouns, while abstract terms such as 'philosophical,' 'theoretical,' 'visionary,' 'vision,' 'farsighted,' and 'forward-looking' were more likely to appear near masculine pronouns.
To be sure that these differences weren't simply a reflection of the kinds of jobs men and women tend to hold, the researchers controlled for both occupation and industry. They also eliminated profiles of professionals in executive roles, which tend to involve abstract thinking and are often held by men. In other words, women weren't being described as more concrete just because they worked in more detail-oriented roles. The stereotypes persisted even when comparing men and women in the same jobs.
In other studies included in the research paper, participants were asked to describe fictional individuals based on brief profiles, and the same pattern emerged: men were described as more abstract, while women were described as more concrete. In one test, participants even linked 'concreteness' with women and 'abstractness' with men more quickly than the reverse, revealing that this bias likely occurs subconsciously.
It's possible that one person can possess both abstract and concrete thinking abilities. In one of the six studies, women were rated higher than men on both concrete and abstract traits, but they were still seen as more concrete than abstract. And men were still rated more abstract than concrete. So, even when women are described as having abstract qualities, they're still seen as more concrete than abstract overall.
It's important to note that the studies provide no evidence to suggest that women are actually more concrete thinkers or that men are more abstract. Instead, they show that people believe this to be true. Because women are often perceived as better suited for detail-oriented work, they may be more frequently assigned to those roles. Over time, doing this kind of work repeatedly can build expertise, reinforcing the stereotype and creating a self-fulfilling cycle that keeps women in support roles and men in strategic ones.
So, the next time you write a LinkedIn recommendation, consider whether your compliments might be inadvertently reinforcing gender stereotypes. Even well-meaning words like 'detail-oriented' may subtly shape how others perceive someone's capabilities.