This study found that people named John get better treatment in science than do ones names Jennifer. The researchers think it was about sexism.
THEY ACTUALLY DID A STUDY OF RESPONSES TO GENDER USING THE SAME TWO NAMES TO REPRESENT THE GENDERS. The man's name was a masculine classic (John) and the woman's name was a popular little girl's name in the 1960s (Jennifer).
Just read the article. In the comments, the NYT writer was called on his stupidity in reporting this as if it were useful. He reply to the commenter indicates that he does not understand why the study totally sucked.
He defended the study, saying that the names had been pre-tested and found to be neutral. This is pre-testing aid to have been done in this study, but no mention of the word "name" or "Jennifer" appears in its full text:
http://mba.yale.edu/faculty/pdf/brescoll_angry.pdf
I went to the study in question. This is all they had to say about names:
"Participants were randomly assigned to one of two student gender conditions: application materials were attributed to either a male student (John, n = 63), or a female student (Jennifer, n = 64), two names that have been pretested as equivalent in likability and recognizeability."
But not in apparent intelligence, dedication, or creativity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/science/bias-persists-against-women-of-science-a-study-says.html?src=recg
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