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Gender bias through production about and memory for names

dc.contributor.advisorBrown-Schmidt, Sarah
dc.creatorGardner, Bethany
dc.date.accessioned2020-09-22T22:43:56Z
dc.date.created2020-08
dc.date.issued2020-08-25
dc.date.submittedAugust 2020
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1803/16130
dc.description.abstractTwo online experiments investigate how alternative forms for reference to individuals—first, last, and full names—affect inferences about the gender of the referent. Given distributional correspondences between first names and gender, first and full names provide probabilistic information about an individual's gender, whereas last names do not. We asked what inferences people make about a referent’s gender based on whether they are referenced using their first, last, or full fame, as well as distributional characteristics of the first name. Results of a sentence continuation task (Experiment 1) revealed that when a character is introduced by last name alone, participants overwhelmingly chose he/him over she/her pronouns to subsequently reference the character. This bias was also apparent when the character was introduced using a first or full name, as participants were less likely to use she/her pronouns than the gender distribution of the first names would predict. When explicitly queried about the referent’s gender (Experiment 2), characters introduced by last name alone were again preferentially inferred as male, and this bias persisted even when first and full names were used. We discuss implications for models of how world knowledge is linked to language use.
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.language.isoen
dc.subjectreference
dc.subjectpronoun
dc.subjectname
dc.subjectgender bias
dc.subjectstereotypes
dc.titleGender bias through production about and memory for names
dc.typeThesis
dc.date.updated2020-09-22T22:43:56Z
dc.type.materialtext
thesis.degree.nameMS
thesis.degree.levelMasters
thesis.degree.disciplinePsychology
thesis.degree.grantorVanderbilt University Graduate School
local.embargo.terms2021-08-01
local.embargo.lift2021-08-01
dc.creator.orcid0000-0002-5154-2040


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