Gendered Language, Androcentric Bias, and Outgroup Attitudes

Measures of outgroup attitudes may not necessarily be comparable across different country contexts. We argue that androcentric bias – the propensity of individuals to imagine men rather than women, and to evaluate men more negatively than women – is more prevalent in some countries than in others. Specifically, androcentric bias hampers accurate conclusions when researchers compare the attitudes of respondents who use a grammatically gendered language with the attitudes of respondents who use a natural gender or a genderless language. To test our claims, we conducted nationally representative survey experiments with over 19,500 respondents in thirteen European countries. We randomly assigned respondents to evaluate: (a) masculine or gender neutral nouns; or (b)"feminized" alternatives. Feminized versions of outgroups evoked more favorable evaluations. Moreover, this positive effect was stronger in grammatically gendered languages. Our findings suggest that using gender-equal binomial word-pairs bolsters comparability, and prevents the erasure of women as sociopolitically relevant actors.