Researchers report that the use of gender-neutral pronouns is associated with increased equitable views toward nonmales. In 2015, Sweden adopted a gender-neutral pronoun, hen. Margit Tavits and Efrén Pérez conducted 3 surveys that included 3,393 Swedish adults. Participants who were instructed to use gender-neutral pronouns to describe an androgynous figure were less likely to assign a male name to a subsequent fictional character than participants who were directed to use masculine pronouns, suggesting that the use of gender-neutral pronouns may reduce mental bias toward males. Further survey questions assessing the respondents' attitudes toward women and LGBT individuals showed that the use of gender-neutral pronouns was associated with favorable views about the roles of nonmales in public life. Respondents took no more time to complete the survey when using gender-neutral pronouns than gendered pronouns, suggesting that the effects of using gender-neutral pronouns are relatively automatic and unlikely to be due to people's desire to be politically correct. According to the authors, language can have a measurable impact on public attitudes toward gender roles and the use of gender-neutral language can lead to equitable views of nonmales in public life.
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Article #19-08156: "Language influences mass opinion toward gender and LGBT equality," by Margit Tavits and Efrén O. Pérez.
MEDIA CONTACT: Efrén O. Pérez, University of California, Los Angeles, CA; e-mail: perezeo@ucla.edu
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences