Beyond Sexist Beliefs: How Do People Decide to Use Gender-Inclusive Language?
Abstract
When people use generic masculine language instead of more gender-inclusive forms, they communicate gender stereotypes and sometimes exclusion of women from certain social roles. Past research related gender-inclusive language use to sexist beliefs and attitudes. Given that this aspect of language use may be transparent to users, it is unclear whether people explicitly act on these beliefs when using gender-exclusive language forms or whether these are more implicit, habitual patterns. In two studies with German-speaking participants, we showed that spontaneous use of gender-inclusive personal nouns is guided by explicitly favorable intentions as well as habitual processes involving past use of such language. Further indicating the joint influence of deliberate and habitual processes, Study 2 revealed that language-use intentions are embedded in explicit sexist ideologies. As anticipated in our decision-making model, the effects of sexist beliefs on language emerged through deliberate mechanisms involving attitudes and intentions.
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In Sczesny et al. (2015), intention to use gender-inclusive language was strongly associated with positive attitudes.
“The results showed that the intention to use gender-inclusive language was strongly associated with positive attitudes.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Sczesny et al., 2015
In Sczesny et al. (2015), actual language use was moderately correlated with both intention and gender-inclusive attitudes.
“Actual language use was moderately correlated with both intention and gender-inclusive attitudes.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Sczesny et al., 2015
Sczesny et al. (2015) and Steiger and Irmen (2007) found no gender differences in their sentence completion tasks.
“Sczesny et al. (2015) and Steiger and Irmen (2007), in their respective German-language studies, found no gender differences in their sentence completion tasks.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Sczesny et al., 2015
In Sczesny et al. (2015), participants reported neutral attitudes toward gender-inclusive language on average, regardless of gender.
“participants reported neutral attitudes toward gender-inclusive language on average, regardless of gender.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Sczesny et al., 2015
In Sczesny et al. (2015), the negative relationship between sexism and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language was observed for ambivalent sexism and neosexism as well, with ambivalent sexism being the weakest.
“Additionally, this relationship was observed for both other forms of sexism, with the effect of ambivalent sexism (across both hostile and benevolent forms) being the weakest.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Sczesny et al. (2015)
In Sczesny et al. (2015), a negative relationship between modern sexism and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language was found.
“Similar to Sarrasin et al. (2012), a negative relationship between modern sexism and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language was found.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Sczesny et al. (2015)
Individuals with stronger sexist attitudes are more negative toward and less likely to use gender-inclusive language.
“are more negative toward and less likely to use gender-inclusive language (Sczesny et al., 2015)”
From A Sexist Language? Gender Differences in Attitudes and Use of Gender-Inclusive Pronouns (2025) · cites this paper as Sczesny et al., 2015
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What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review
Lange, E., & von Stockhausen, L. (2025) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1657753 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
A Sexist Language? Gender Differences in Attitudes and Use of Gender-Inclusive Pronouns
Remsö, A., Bäck, H., & Renström, E. A. (2025) · Journal of Language and Social Psychology · doi:10.1177/0261927x251335305 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“…Sarrasin et al., 2012), and individuals with stronger sexist attitudes tend to be less sensitive to sexist language (Swim et al., 2004), use more gender-biased words (Cralley & Ruscher, 2005), and are more negative toward and less likely to use gender-inclusive language (Sczesny et al., 2015).”
- Authors
- Sczesny, S., Moser, F., & Wood, W.
- Affiliations
- University of Bern (CH)
- FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (CH)
- University of Southern California (US)
- Venue
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2015-05-26
- Volume
- 41
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 943-954
- ISSN
- 0146-1672 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-7433
- OpenAlex
- W1689399907
- Cited by
- 88
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 14.70
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender Studies in Language
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender and Feminist Studies
- Keywords
- gender-inclusive language, sexist beliefs, gender stereotypes, explicit attitudes, person nouns, decision models
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Attitude, Decision Making, Female, Humans, Language, Male, Middle Aged, Young Adult, Sexism
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