Abstract
Language users often infer a person’s gender when it is not explicitly mentioned. This information is included in the mental model of the described situation, giving rise to expectations regarding the continuation of the discourse. Such gender inferences can be based on two types of information: gender stereotypes (e.g., nurses are female) and masculine generics, which are grammatically masculine word forms that are used to refer to all genders in certain contexts (e.g., To each his own). In this eye-tracking experiment (N = 82), which is the first to systematically investigate the online processing of masculine generic pronouns, we tested whether the frequently used Dutch masculine generic zijn ‘his’ leads to a male bias. In addition, we tested the effect of context by introducing male, female, and neutral stereotypes. We found no evidence for the hypothesis that the generically-intended masculine pronoun zijn ‘his’ results in a male bias. However, we found an effect of stereotype context. After introducing a female stereotype, reading about a man led to an increase in processing time. However, the reverse did not hold, which parallels the finding in social psychology that men are penalized more for gender-nonconforming behavior. This suggests that language processing is not only affected by the strength of stereotype contexts; the associated disapproval of violating these gender stereotypes affects language processing, too.
Highlights
Masculine forms are often used when reference to people in general is made
We further found that first gaze duration was increased on the proper name—regardless of the gender of the referent—after male stereotype contexts compared to neutral stereotype contexts
We found no evidence for a male bias induced by the generically-intended masculine pronoun zijn ‘his’
Summary
Masculine forms are often used when reference to people in general is made. This phenomenon is, for example, apparent in the proverb To each his own, which applies to men and women alike, but yet features the masculine pronoun his. Many of the world’s languages exhibit this phenomenon [1,2], one of them being Dutch [3]. A headline taken from a column in the Dutch quality newspaper De Volkskrant [4] further illustrating this practice:. Elke postbezorger zal zich moeten afvragen wat hij kan doen om als geheel sterker te staan. ‘Every postal worker will have to think about what he can do for all postal workers to gain a better standing as a group.’
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