Ladies First or Ladies Last: Do Masculine Generics Evoke a Reduced and Later Retrieval of Female Exemplars?

Abstract

The use of masculine generics (i.e., grammatically masculine forms that refer to both men and women) is prevalent in many languages but has been criticized for potentially triggering male bias. Empirical evidence for this claim exists but is often based on small and selective samples. This study is a high-powered and pre-registered replication and extension of a 20-year-old study on this biasing effect in German speakers. Under 1 of 4 conditions (masculine generics vs. three gender-inclusive alternatives), 344 participants listed 3 persons of 6 popular occupational categories (e.g., athletes, politicians). Despite 20 years of societal changes, results were remarkably similar, underscoring the high degree of automaticity involved in language comprehension (large effects of 0.71 to 1.12 of a standard deviation). Male bias tended to be particularly pronounced later rather than early in retrieval, suggesting that salient female exemplars may be recalled first but that male exemplars still dominate the overall categorical representations.