Effects of the Generic Masculine and Its Alternatives in Germanophone Countries: A Multi-Lab Replication and Extension of Stahlberg, Sczesny, and Braun (2001)

Abstract

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 participants’ 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 forms), implications for regulations and guidelines, as well as implications for non-binary and gender-diverse people.

Keywords

• gender-inclusive language
• gender-fair language
• generic masculine
• open data
• multi-site study