What Your Online Comments Say About You

The New York Times:

When we comment on news stories, most of us hope to say something about the topic at hand — even (or maybe especially) if it’s that the author got it all wrong. But what do the comments we leave say about us — about our beliefs, our biases and how we act when the ordinary rules don’t apply? And how do our comments affect the beliefs of others?

Some researchers are taking up these questions. One is Corinne A. Moss-Racusin, a psychology professor at Skidmore College. In a recent study, she and her co-authors Aneta K. Molenda and Charlotte R. Cramer analyzed comments from three sources (The New York Times, the Discover magazine science blog and a Facebook group for science buffs) about a previous study of hers, one that found evidence of gender bias in science. They found some encouraging signs: Positive comments were more common than negative ones. However, they write, comments arguing that gender bias was justified because of biological differences between men and women were common — distressing, they argue, “because biological explanations for gender differences have been linked to heightened endorsement of gender stereotypes.”

Read the whole story: The New York Times