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IZOLDA TAKÁCS: THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY that “eminent scientists get disproportionately great credit for their contributions to science while relatively unknown scientists tend to get disproportionately little credit for comparable contributions”.!*’ So, ultimately, the rewards are distributed among people who have already been recognized." Merton used a guote from the Bible, "for to those who have, more will be given; and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away” in his science sociology. Today, this concept is used to describe phenomena where the advantage of favoured groups is reproduced by institutional systems, so they gain additional benefits while the disadvantages of the less favoured people continue to grow.'® As far as our topic is concerned, it means that women are the ones who are excluded from most rewards. In addition, women’s scientific efforts are depreciated compared to men. While, for example, the open discrimination in American society is declining, most of the research in social sciences has shown that women’s work and their results are considered less important or less valuable than men’s. This latter phenomenon was first identified by Margaret W. Rossiter in 1993 and called the “Matilda effect”, according to which women’s scientific work and results are often attributed to their male colleagues or ignored completely.” It is important to note here that research has shown not only men have gender prejudices. In fact, both men and women appreciate men more than women, even in case of equal performance.” This is closely related to the fact that men’s self-esteem is generally higher and women’s are lower than their real performance, which can lead to worse results. Steele and Aronson had black and white students take different oral exams in their 1995 surveys, and established that the results of the participants reflected prejudices stemming from typical racial (black vs. white) differences. The survey pointed out that the performance differences experienced were parallel to racial differences, and manifested themselves primarily due to the participants’ fears of reinforcing the negative stereotypes relative to their 140 13 S Merton, R.: The Matthew Effect in Science, Science, Vol. 159, No. 3810, 1968, 56-63, http://www. garfield.library.upenn.edu/merton/matthewl.pdf (accessed 21 May 2022). Lincoln, A. E. - Pincus, S. — Koster, J. - Leboy, P. S.: The Matilda Effect in science: Awards and prizes in the US, 1990s and 2000s, Social Studies of Science, 42(2), 2012, 307-320. See also: Merton: The Matthew Effect. 40 Long-Fox, quoted by Lincoln et al.: The Matilda, 308. 41 Goldin—Rouse, 2000; Heilman—Haynes, 2005; Wenneras—Wold, 1997; quoted by Lincoln, et al.: The Matilda, 308. Knobloch-Westerwick, S. — Glynn, C. J. - Huge, M.: The Matilda Effect in Science Communication. An Experiment on Gender Bias in Publication Quality Perceptions and Collaboration Interest, Science Communication, 35(5), 2013, 603-625. See Correll et al., Steinpreis et al., quoted by Lincoln et al.: The Matilda, 308. The phenomenon resembles the above-mentioned Goldberg paradigm. 13. æ 13: © 14 S 143
