Researcher diversity, equity, and inclusion: A critical blind spot of the computational modeling movement within psychological science

Computational psychology is a growing field that uses computer simulations and mathematical modeling to explain and predict complex behavior in psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience. It is now one of the priority areas for research funders, scientific journals, and faculty hiring. However, anecdotal evidence has always pointed to longstanding diversity issues in the field with a lack of representation among women and black individuals. We sought to move beyond anecdotal accounts and examine the extent of these disparities in awards given and authorship of peer-reviewed articles. Our goal was to highlight the need for increased diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within computational psychology. Name-based classifiers were used to estimate individuals’ gender and race based on first and last names. From these classifications, we examined demographic trends among N=27,163 authors and N=390 award-winners in preeminent journals/societies across computational psychology (including computational psychiatry, mathematical psychology, and computational neuroscience), psychology/neuroscience, and computational science. Results indicated that women represented just 23% of authors and 15% of award-winners within computational psychology—markedly lower than computational science (authors: 29%) and psychology/neuroscience (authors: 40-47%; award-winners: 38%). Black individuals were underrepresented among authors (2-4% of authors in computational science and psychology/neuroscience), but representation was lowest in computational psychology, where black individuals represented a mere 0.8% of authors. Taken together, these findings highlight major gender and racial disparities among computational psychology researchers. Evidence suggests that diverse teams tend to show better performance, more creativity, and produce more novel, high-impact science. Therefore, these disparities emphasize the necessity of targeted efforts (e.g., outreach, mentorship programs) to increase DEI within computational psychology to ensure equitable access to resources and promote scientific advancement.