Abstract
Considerable evidence suggests that, although “generic” terms (he, his, man, men) may be intended to refer to both women and men, they are often interpreted literally and thus function to exclude women. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that readers' sensitivity to and literal interpretation of gender references in prose can affect performance in a memory task. Collegestudent subjects read essays that were identical except for the use of “generic” terms versus those that specifically include women (he/she, his/her, people). In Experiment I, the Generic essay form led to better recall of the essay's factual content by male subjects, while the Specific form produced better recall by females. A similar pattern was found for female subjects in Experiment 2. In both experiments, effects were stronger for good learners. Results suggest that Generic and Specific styles are more relevant to men and women, respectively, and that the observed differences in recall may be mediated by differences in interpretation and interest based on perceived relevance.
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This report is based on a thesis submitted to West Chester University by L. English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the M.A. degree. The authors extend special thanks to Roger Chaffrin and Doug Herrmann for constructive discussions while the work was in progress, to Sam Moore and Leigh Shafer for their participation as members of the thesis committee, and to the anonymous reviewer whose suggestions for revisions and further analyses improved the manuscript.
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Crawford, M., English, L. Generic versus specific inclusion of women in language: Effects on recall. J Psycholinguist Res 13, 373–381 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01068152
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01068152