Men’s favorite experts? Themselves!

They're just a bunch of bro-it-alls.

A new study found that male academics are 56% more likely than females to cite themselves in their work.

Researchers went all the way back to 1779 to analyze citations in more than 1.5 million papers. Self-citation is common, and nearly 10% of all citations were authors mentioning their own work. But men were far more likely to toot their own horn — and they’re doing it more and more.

“In the last two decades of our data, men self-cite 70% more than women,” the researchers wrote. “Women are also more than 10 percentage points more likely than men to not cite their own previous work at all.”

This is a big deal, because the more often you are cited, the more prestigious you become in your field. Citing yourself lures more citations from others. And these citation counts translate into higher pay, tenure and better positions at universities. One unnamed bro-it-all's work noted in the report has received more than 7,000 citations, according to the Washington Post, and more than a fifth of them came from himself! Talk about working the system.

The authors suggest men self-promote more because studies have shown they have a higher opinion of themselves and their abilities than women do, and they also tend to publish more and earlier in their careers.

Women — it’s time to lean in and reference yourselves! Rack up footnotes and citations. This self-citation gender gap was seen across every major academic field, including biology, sociology, philosophy and law. It has likely contributed to women representing less than 25% of university faculty in science and engineering departments, even though they’ve earned at least half of all bachelor’s degrees in these fields.