--- title: Men Like to Mansplain Themselves, Study Finds description: Are men talking to much? Maybe. But mansplainers have one big problem: Male academics cite themselves more often than women. canonical: https://time.com/4433108/men-mansplain-citation-study/ author: Megan Lasher article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-01T17:46:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:03:03.094Z og:title: Men Like to Mansplain Themselves, Study Finds og:description: They can be their own source, thanks og:url: https://time.com/4433108/men-mansplain-citation-study/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt79fcda96f8fc310f/6988a09d5f570f9ce1b22085/men-mansplain-study-cite.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Typewriter with bubble of binary digits og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Men Like to Mansplain Themselves, Study Finds twitter:description: They can be their own source, thanks twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt79fcda96f8fc310f/6988a09d5f570f9ce1b22085/men-mansplain-study-cite.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Men Like to Mansplain Themselves, Study Finds by [Megan Lasher](https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/) ## Megan Lasher Aug 1, 2016 5:46 PM UTC  Retro typewriter printing speech bubble of binary digits Retro typewriter printing speech bubble of binary digitsGetty Images by [Megan Lasher](https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/) ## Megan Lasher Aug 1, 2016 5:46 PM UTC You’ve seen it happen: A woman makes a simple statement in a meeting or in conversation and, as if out of nowhere,[ a mansplainer](http://motto.time.com/4272108/jimmy-kimmel-mansplain-hillary-clinton/) rises to the occasion to make his vast knowledge known. Mansplainers are teachers of all subjects and students of none—they will tell you things you didn’t know about yourself while affirming[ the already-true comments](https://www.amazon.com/Men-Explain-Things-Me-Updated/dp/1608464962?tag=mottocom-20) you’ve made. But a recent study has identified the mansplainer’s new prey: Himself. According to [a working paper published in the Cornell University Library](https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.00376), male academics are far more likely to cite themselves in papers. The researchers of the study analyzed over 1.5 million academic papers from JSTOR published between 1779-2011\. Their conclusion? “Men cite their own papers 56% more than women do.” “In the last two decades of our data, men self-cite 70% more than women,” the researchers wrote. “Women are also more than ten percentage points more likely than men to not cite their own previous work at all.” [_Follow Motto on Facebook._](https://www.facebook.com/mottoworkplaylive/) [The _Washington Post_ clarifies](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/01/new-study-finds-that-men-are-often-their-own-favorite-experts-on-any-given-subject/?tid=sm%5Ftw) that this major gap signifies more than just an ego difference between genders. “Academics are more likely to cite papers that are already well-cited, so [citing yourself means more citations from others](http://fowler.ucsd.edu/does%5Fself%5Fcitation%5Fpay.pdf),” the _Post_ wrote. “And more citations means better career-advancement opportunities.” And it’s not getting better any time soon: “Despite increased representation of women in academia, this gender gap in self-citation rates has remained stable over the last 50 years,” the paper says. For now, at least we have this [handy tool](http://arementalkingtoomuch.com/) to measure when men are talking too much. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4433108/men-mansplain-citation-study/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4433108/men-mansplain-citation-study/"},"headline":"Men Like to Mansplain Themselves, Study Finds","datePublished":"2016-08-01T17:46:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:03:03.094Z","description":"They can be their own source, thanks","url":"https://time.com/4433108/men-mansplain-citation-study/","keywords":["motto","study","News","Research"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt79fcda96f8fc310f/6988a09d5f570f9ce1b22085/men-mansplain-study-cite.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan Lasher","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt79fcda96f8fc310f/6988a09d5f570f9ce1b22085/men-mansplain-study-cite.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Typewriter with bubble of binary digits","caption":"Typewriter with bubble of binary digits","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4433108/men-mansplain-citation-study/","name":"Men Like to Mansplain Themselves, Study Finds"}}]}] ```