Biased inferences about gender from names

Abstract

How do alternative forms of reference to individuals—first, last, and full names—guide inferences about the gender of the referent? Given distributional correspondences between English first names and gender, first names provide probabilistic information about an individual's gender. While English last names do not vary with gender, men are more likely to be referred to by last name alone. Across four experiments, we demonstrate that inferences about gender are shaped by a persistent bias to infer that people are male, along with probabilistic information carried by the first name. When an individual was introduced by last name alone, participants overwhelmingly used he to subsequently refer to the person, suggesting that participants inferred that the person was male. This bias was still present when the individual was introduced using a first or full name, with participants less likely to use she than the distributional characteristics of the first names would predict. When explicitly asked to recall an individual’s gender who was introduced by last name alone, participants preferentially responded that the person was male. This bias persisted even when the person was introduced using a first or full name. Repeated reference attenuated, but did not eliminate, this bias. We discuss implications for models of how world knowledge is linked to language use.