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Exchanging the Generic Masculine for Gender- Balanced Forms - The Impact of Context Valence

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Ute Gabriel at Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Ute Gabriel
Franziska Mellenberger
Franziska Mellenberger
Franziska Mellenberger
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Abstract

Research on the generic masculine (i.e., male nouns used in gender-overlapping or gender-abstracting way) and its alternatives has repeatedly revealed that in German the generic masculine is more strongly associated with male persons than other types of generic. As research has only been done in positive or neutral contexts we extended a study by Stahlberg et al. (2001, Experiment 1) to test whether the results can be generalized across valences. The experiment (N = 156) revealed that gender-balancing forms are more frequently associated with women than the generic masculine. This held especially true for male participants. With reference to the valence manipulation female participants tended to show asymmetric ingroup favoritism whereas male participants' preference for same sex associations was indifferent to the valence manipulation. Results are discussed in light of cognitive and motivational consequences of the different generics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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... However, they found no interaction between the linguistic form that was used and participant gender. Although the same effects for participant gender were reported by Keith et al. (2022), Gabriel and Mellenberger (2004) found that men named almost no female exemplars when the generic masculine was used and women were more sensitive to inclusive forms. This finding suggests that there may be an interaction between the linguistic form used and gender, with women being more inclined to provide female exemplars when presented with inclusive forms, whereas the specific form that is used does not seem to affect men. ...
... However, it is less clear whether forms that have been advocated more recently will be effective in reducing bias in the current context. Furthermore, it is currently unclear what role the gender of the participant plays in understanding the kind of cognitive effects that the various forms give rise to, as some studies found main effects of participant gender , whereas other studies suggested the presence of an interaction effect (Gabriel & Mellenberger, 2004). ...
... Hypothesis 2: The higher mental availability of nonmasculine exemplars will be particularly pronounced for female participants who are exposed to the gender star. Linguistic form and participant gender are thus thought to interact 2 (see Gabriel & Mellenberger, 2004;Koeser & Sczesny, 2014). ...
A star is born? The German gender star and its effects on mental representation
Article
Full-text available
  • Aug 2023
  • Psychol Lang Comm
Although generic masculine forms supposedly include everyone, they seem to evoke masculine representations to the exclusion of other genders (Stahlberg & Sczesny, 2001). Gender-inclusive alternatives may yield more inclusive representations, but this has not been investigated extensively. The current study focused on German and contrasts generic masculine forms (Politiker, politicians) with the gender star (Politiker*innen, politicians [m/f/d]) in order to assess whether they differ in the mental availability of nonmasculine exemplars. The findings suggest that linguistic form matters, as more female exemplars were listed when participants were exposed to the gender star, although very few other nonmasculine exemplars were mentioned. Furthermore, female participants listed more nonmasculine exemplars than male participants, but, as the sample was skewed (more female than male participants), this result is tentative. Thus, the gender star leads to more inclusive mental representations, but other factors likely also play a role in determining the prominence of nonmasculine exemplars.
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... This might translate into different behavior across treatments. Indeed, previous results from psycholinguistics indicate that the usage of the generic male formulation can trigger gender stereotypes and mental images (Crawford and English, 1984;Gabriel and Mellenberger, 2004;Vervecken and Hannover, 2015;Sczesny et al., 2016). However, the findings are mixed. ...
... One strand of this literature studies how gender in language-and gendered language in specific-influences, for example, the categorization of objects and attitudes toward men and women in recruitment processes and labor participation (Cubelli et al., 2011;Perszyk and Waxman, 2018;Lindqvist et al., 2019;Jakiela and Ozier, 2021). In particular, there is comprehensive evidence that the generic male formulation fosters a so-called male bias-a preferential behavior toward men-and sex-stereotyping, some of which can be mitigated by the use of gender-inclusive language (Crawford and English, 1984;Stahlberg and Sczesny, 2001;Gabriel and Mellenberger, 2004;Mavisakalyan, 2015;Vervecken and Hannover, 2015;Sczesny et al., 2016). However, the usage of neutral forms such as "person" lead to ambiguous effects with respect to associations and seems to be more context-dependent (Stahlberg and Sczesny, 2001). ...
... See, e.g.,Crawford and English (1984);Gabriel and Mellenberger (2004); Stahlberg et al. (2007); Gaucher et al. (2011); Vervecken and Hannover (2015); Horvath and Sczesny (2016); Sczesny et al. (2016); Hodel et al. (2017); Archer and Kam (2022) for research and May (2020); Schuetze (2020); Grullón Paz (2021); Lankes (2022) for the general public. ...
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... Much of the work on the impact of the generic masculine in the German language has been conducted by the group of Stahlberg and colleagues. With different paradigms (e.g., Braun et al. 1998;, the authors suggested that people thought more about men than women when exposed to nouns in the generic-masculine form, independent of their own sex (for similar findings but with a significant participant sex effect, see Gabriel & Mellenberger 2004). 1 Consequently, associations related to alternative concepts (i.e., women) might be less likely to get activated or even inhibited. The authors then demonstrated that this generic-masculine effect could be considerably reduced through the use of gender-inclusive alternatives, when either both genders were explicitly referred to (feminine-masculine form) or when the so-called internal-I form 2 was used to avoid long formulations (e.g., 'die DoktorInnen' or the doctors). ...
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... Much of the work on the impact of the generic masculine in the German language has been conducted by the group of Stahlberg and colleagues. With different paradigms (e.g., Braun et al. 1998;, the authors suggested that people thought more about men than women when exposed to nouns in the generic-masculine form, independent of their own sex (for similar findings but with a significant participant sex effect, see Gabriel & Mellenberger 2004). 1 Consequently, associations related to alternative concepts (i.e., women) might be less likely to get activated or even inhibited. The authors then demonstrated that this generic-masculine effect could be considerably reduced through the use of gender-inclusive alternatives, when either both genders were explicitly referred to (feminine-masculine form) or when the so-called internal-I form 2 was used to avoid long formulations (e.g., 'die DoktorInnen' or the doctors). ...
Effects of the Generic Masculine and its Alternatives in Germanophone countries - A Multi-lab Replication and Extension of Stahlberg, Sczesny, and Braun, 2001
Preprint
Full-text available
  • Jul 2024
In languages such as German, French, or Hindi, plural forms of job occupations and societal roles are often in a generic-masculine form instead of a gender-inclusive form. Although meant as “generic”, this generic-masculine form excludes women from everyday language. Specifically, listeners and readers are less likely to think of women when this form is used. Due to the societal relevance of gender-inclusive language, we directly replicated and extended a classic study by Stahlberg, Sczesny, and Braun (2001, Experiment 2) in a multi-lab setting and as a registered confirmatory report. We prompted participants from German-speaking countries to name up to three celebrities each in six categories (e.g., “Name three politicians” or “singers”). We then counted how often participants mentioned women. Participants were either prompted with the generic-masculine form, a neutralized control form or one out of three gender-inclusive forms. Our data from twelve labs and N = 2,697 participants replicated the original effect: when prompted with gender-inclusive forms participants mentioned more women than when the generic masculine and the control form were used. Moreover, the effect remained present in multilevel models and when controlling for participant sex and their perceived base rate in these celebrity categories (i.e., the expected proportion of women). Other variables, such as political orientation or preference for gender-inclusive language, did not show large effects, either. We discuss the differences between specific gender-inclusive forms (e.g., the internal I vs. feminine-masculine form), implications for regulations and guidelines, as well as implications for non-binary and gender-diverse people.
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... Badaczki i badacze zgodnie stwierdzają, że użycie generycznego maskulinum wywołuje głównie męskie skojarzenia, przyczyniając się do tzw. językowej niewidzialności kobiet, co wykazano na gruncie wielu języków, np.: angielskiego (Gastil 1991), hiszpańskiego (Nissen 2002), rosyjskiego (Doleschal, Schmid 2001) czy niemieckiego (Gabriel, Mellenberger 2004). ...
Człowiek, polityk, podatnik. Czy generyczne maskulinum ma charakter w pełni inkluzywny?
Article
  • Apr 2024
W artykule podjęto, opierając się na nowych danych językowych, próbę odpowiedzi na pytanie, czy generyczne nazwy męskie faktycznie mają charakter w pełni inkluzywny i odnoszą się w równym stopniu do kobiet i mężczyzn. Autorka dowodzi, że tak nie jest – na podstawie studium niebadanego wcześniej w języku polskim zjawiska przesunięcia znaczeniowego od nazw ogólnych do ich męskich egzemplifikacji (np. podatnik > Kowalski), a także na podstawie wyników oryginalnego badania ankietowego z udziałem młodzieży studenckiej, dotyczącego konotacji z kobietami i mężczyznami generycznego maskulinum określającego osoby zajmujące się polityką, sportem, sztuką i nauką (np. naukowiec) w porównaniu z formami obu rodzajów (np. naukowiec/naukowczyni), podanymi w różnej kolejności i uwzględniającymi płeć ankietowanych. Na płaszczyźnie teoretycznej wyniki obu badań interpretowane są w świetle kognitywnej teorii prototypów, według której typowym reprezentantem form generycznych jest mężczyzna, zgodnie ze schematem myślowo-kulturowym: ‘człowiek = mężczyzna’.
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... After reading generic masculine forms, participants were, for example, faster and more accurate to react to male compared to female exemplars and subgroups (e.g., Garnham & Yakovlev, 2015;Gygax et al., 2008Gygax et al., , 2012Irmen & Roßberg, 2004;Körner et al., 2022;Sato et al., 2016; for similar findings using EEG, see Mikić Ljubi et al., 2022;Misersky et al., 2019;Glim et al., 2023aGlim et al., , 2023b for an exception, see Rothermund, 1998). Similar results have also been observed when participants were directly or indirectly asked to indicate referents' gender (Bailey et al., 2022;Braun et al., 1998;Gabriel & Mellenberger, 2004;Gastil, 1990;Hamilton, 1988;Hansen et al., 2016;Heise, 2000;Kaufmann & Bohner, 2014;Keith et al., 2022;Schneider & Hacker, 1973;. This male bias has been found to have psychological consequences, influencing, for example, job motivation and intended career choices (Bem & Bem, 1973;Stout & Dasgupta, 2011;Vervecken et al., 2013). ...
Examining the glottal stop as a mark of gender-inclusive language in German
Article
Full-text available
  • Feb 2024
Grammatical gender form influences readers’ mental gender representations. Previous research demonstrates that the generic masculine form leads to male-biased representations, while some alternative forms lead to female-biased representations. The present research examines the recently introduced glottal stop form in spoken language in German, where a glottal stop (similar to a short pause), meant to represent all gender identities, is inserted before the gender-specific ending. In two experiments (total N = 1188), participants listened to sentences in the glottal stop, the generic masculine, or the generic feminine form and classified whether a second sentence about women or men was a sensible continuation. The generic feminine and the glottal stop led to female biases (fewer errors in sentences about women vs. men) and the generic masculine led to a male bias. The biases were smaller for the glottal stop and the generic masculine than for the generic feminine, indicating that the former two are more readily understood as representing both women and men.
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... For example, die Musiker (the German word for musicians) which can be understood as masculine or generic, was automatically interpreted as masculine in Gygax et al. (2008). Most empirical research shows that masculine forms primarily elicit malespecific interpretations, compared to gender-balanced language alternatives that include the image of women (Gabriel and Mellenberger, 2004;Stahlberg et al., 2007;Gygax et al., 2008Gygax et al., , 2009). Thus, when readers have two options for interpreting the masculine form, they usually resort to a specific interpretation of the form as masculine, thus evoking the male bias. ...
The effects of grammatical gender on the processing of occupational role names in Slovene: An event-related potential study
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2022
The event-related potential method has proven to be a useful tool for studying the effects of gender information in language. Studies have shown that mismatch between the antecedent and the following referent triggers two ERP components, N400 and P600. In the present study, we investigated how grammatical gender affects the mental representation of the grammatical subject. A match-mismatch paradigm was used to investigate how masculine grammatical gender and gender-balanced forms (the explicit mention of masculine and feminine forms as word pairs) as role nouns affect the processing of the referent in Slovenian. The morphological complexity of Slovenian language required the use of anaphoric verbs instead of nouns/pronouns, on which previous research was based. The results showed that following both the gender-balanced and the masculine generic forms, P600 (but not N400) was observed in response to the feminine verb but not to the masculine verb. The P600 amplitude was smaller in the case of the gender-balanced form than in the case of the masculine generic form only. We have concluded that gender-balanced forms are more open to feminine continuations than masculine generic forms. This is the first ERP study in Slovenian to address the effects of processing grammatical gender, thus contributing to existing research on languages with grammatical gender. The great strength of the study is that it is one of the first ERP studies to test the mental inclusivity of gender-balanced forms.
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GENDERED LANGUAGE IN THE CONSTITUTION OF NIGERIA – REPHRASING TO ACHIEVE GENDER NEUTRAL DRAFTING
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Full-text available
  • Jun 2024
The use of words to portray gender and therefore apportion benefits or disadvantages is true in both verbal and written communication. This is even truer in legislative drafting, as the use of gendered language may depict a more serious problem of sexism, discrimination and paternalism in the society. Using the doctrinal approach, this paper examined gendered language in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 relating to the qualification and appointment of judicial officers, to analyse the effect of such gendered language on the interpretation of the constitution and the likelihood of the female gender suffering disadvantage thereby. The paper found that the gendered language used in the 1999 constitution of Nigeria in the qualification and appointment of judicial officers, is gender insensitive, ambiguous and capable of excluding the female gender from consideration for appointment to such offices. It also found that the gendered language in the relevant constitutional provisions exhibit masculinity and does not promote the required gender equality in a legal draft. The paper recommended amendment to reconstruct the language of the constitution to achieve gender neutrality.
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Zur Wahrnehmung des generischen Maskulinums in Erstgliedern von Komposita und maskuliner Epizöna
Article
  • Dec 2023
Most German nouns that can be used to refer to people or groups of people have a masculine (e.g., Lehrer ‘male teacher’) and a derived feminine (e.g., Lehrerin ‘female teacher’) form. The grammatically masculine nouns are typically viewed as being ambiguous between a reading which can only be used to refer to men and a reading which can be used to refer to mixed-gender groups (the so-called “generic masculine“). The main question of the present article is whether this generalization also holds for the first elements of nominal compounds (e.g., Lehrer - in Lehrerzimmer ‘teachers’ room’) and for inherently masculine nouns from which no feminine form can be derived (e.g., Gast which is inherently masculine). The empirical data discussed suggest that generic masculine forms used as the first elements of N-N compounds as well as inherently masculine nouns are interpreted rather generically, i.e., not as referring to male individuals only.
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Personenbezeichnungsmodelle auf demPrüfstand
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 2004
  • Z PSYCHOL
Zusammenfassung. In zwei experimentellen Studien wurden anhand von langeren Texten die Thesen der Feministischen Linguistik uberpruft, dass (1) das “generische“ Maskulinum zu einer “Benachteiligung“ von Frauen im Denken der SprachbenutzerInnen fuhrt, was (2) durch sprachliche “Heilungs“varianten aufgehoben werden kann. In Studie 1 resultierte in einem sexuskonkretisierenden, Assoziationen an Manner auslosenden Kontext (Budapester Bader) bei 220 Vpn sowohl fur das “generische“ Maskulinum als auch fur “Heilungs“varianten ein geschlechterasymmetrisches Denken (mit Ubergewicht der Manner-Referenz). Beim Wechsel auf den Kontext “Erlebnisbader in Deutschland“ in Studie 2 (N = 194) bestand diese Wirkung des durchgangig verwendeten “generischen“ Maskulinums fort, wahrend dessen partielle und vollstandige Ersetzung durch die “Heilungs“varianten ‘Paarform‘ sowie deren Kombination mit dem Nomen ‘Person‘ geschlechtersymmetrische Assoziationen zur Folge hatte; das Versalien-I fuhrte zu einem asymmetrischen Denken mit ...
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Effekte des generischen Maskulinums und alternativer Sprachformenauf den gedanklichen Einbezug von Frauen
Article
Full-text available
  • Jul 2001
Zusammenfassung. In der feministischen Linguistik wird angenommen, das maskuline Bezeichnungen, die generisch benutzt werden (Bezeichnungen von Personen beiderlei Geschlechts durch die maskuline Form, wie z.B. die Wissenschaftler, die Studenten), weibliche Personen weniger vorstellbar oder sichtbar machen als mannliche Personen. Verschiedene experimentelle Untersuchungen konnten diese Annahme fur den englischen Sprachraum bestatigen. Fur die deutsche Sprache existieren dagegen bislang sehr wenige Studien zu dieser Frage. Es werden vier Experimente vorgestellt, die untersuchen, ob unterschiedliche Sprachversionen - ,Beidnennung‘ (Studentinnen und Studenten), ,Neutral‘ (Studierende), ,Generisches Maskulinum‘ (Studenten) und “Groses I“ (StudentInnen) - den gedanklichen Einbezug von Frauen beeinflussen. Uber alle Experimente hinweg zeigte sich, das bei Personenreferenzen im generischen Maskulinum ein geringerer gedanklicher Einbezug von Frauen zu beobachten war als bei alternativen Sprachformen wie der Beidne...
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Automatic gender-specific associations to texts containing gender-specific and masculine generic text-subjects
Article
  • Jan 1998
Two experiments (N=48 each) were conducted to investigate gender-specific elements in the mental representation of short German texts. The texts contained a specific male or female designator (e.g., Mr. Smith, Mrs. Meyer) or a masculine generic phrase (CM) in either singular or plural usage (e.g., the student, the students) as text-subject. Two testphrases were constructed for each text, which did not appear in the text but reflected a masculine or feminine understanding of the text. Gender-specific associations were measured via the time that was required to reject the masculine and feminine test-distractors in a subsequent recognition task. Reading the texts with a specific male or female designator as text-subject increased the rejection time for the gender-congruent testphrases. For texts containing a GM as text-subject, the pattern of gender-specific associations was dependent on the grammatical numberof the GM-phrase. Reading a scenario containing a GM in the singular increased rejection times for the masculine test-phrases, while reading a scenario with a GM in the plural increased rejection times for the feminine test-phrases.
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Are People Prejudiced Against Women? Some Answers From Research on Attitudes, Gender Stereotypes, and Judgments of Competence
Article
  • Jan 1994
In contemporary research, attitudes toward women appear to be more positive than those toward men in samples of US and Canadian university students, and the evaluative content of the female stereotype is more favorable than the evaluative content of the male stereotype. These research findings on attitudes and stereotypes are compared with the findings of Goldberg-paradigm experiments on judgments of women's and men's competence, which are commonly thought to reflect people's attitudes and stereotypes. Although research on competence judgments has not shown a pervasive tendency to devalue women's work, it has demonstrated prejudice against women in masculine domains (e.g. male-dominated jobs, male-stereotypic behavior). This targeted form of prejudice is consistent with the generally more favorable evaluation of women than men obtained in attitude and stereotype studies because this positive evaluation derives primarily from the ascription to women of nice, nurturant, communal characteristics, which people think qualify individuals for the domestic role as well as for low-status, low-paying female-dominated jobs. Women's experiences of gender discrimination and feminist protests concerning a contemporary backlash against women reflect women's inroads into traditionally masculine arenas, especially their efforts to gain access to high-status, high-paying male-dominated jobs, which are thought to require characteristics stereotypically ascribed to men.
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Sind Frauen mitgemeint? Eine empirische Untersuchung zumVerständnis des generischen Maskulinums und seinerAlternativen
Article
  • Jun 2000
Zusammenfassung: Die vorliegende Untersuchung pruft, ob sogenannte “generisch” (d.h. in geschlechtsneutralem Sinne verwendete) maskuline Sprachformen dazu fuhren, dass Personen geschlechtsausgewogen mental reprasentiert werden. Unter dem Vorwand einer Untersuchung zur Kreativitat wurden 150 studentischen Versuchspersonen schriftlich Satze vorgegeben, die eine Personenbezeichnung im Plural in verschiedenen Sprachformen (generisches Maskulinum, Binnen-I, Schragstrich-Schreibweise) als Satzsubjekt enthielten. Die Versuchspersonen sollten kurze Geschichten uber die bezeichneten Personen schreiben und diese Personen dabei auch namentlich benennen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass generisch maskuline Formen zu mehr Reprasentationen mannlicher Personen fuhrten als die sprachlichen Alternativen. Eine Gleichverteilung mannlicher und weiblicher Reprasentationen trat ausschlieslich bei der Verwendung der Schragstrich-Schreibweise auf, wohingegen das generische Maskulinum zu einem hoheren Anteil reprasentierter Manner, di...
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