We Need More Than Awareness: The Gender Gap in Scholarly Self-Promotion on Social Media

Promoting one’s research on social media has become an important form of visibility work in academia. Prior research finds that men tend to self-promote their research papers more than women. This study draws on a survey of 3,111 U.S.-based academics to examine why this gender gap persists and experimentally test whether informing participants of the gap influences their intentions to self-promote in the future. We find that women are more likely than men to perceive reputational benefits (e.g., recognition, networking opportunities) but also to anticipate higher interpersonal and professional consequences (e.g., harassment, credibility loss, and time constraints). Men, by contrast, more often cite skepticism about usefulness or audience presence as reasons for not self-promoting. Exposure to the gender gap significantly decreases men’s intentions to promote their next paper on social media, while women’s intentions remain similar. The findings suggest that the perceived risks of social media platforms continue to shape the gender gap in scholarly self-promotion, and awareness-based interventions alone are unlikely to motivate behavioral change uniformly.