The impact of gender-exclusive language on women’s anticipated ostracism: A preregistered replication of Stout and Dasgupta (2011)

Abstract

In a 2011 study, Stout and Dasgupta exposed men and women to what they termed gender-inclusive language, which used both male and female referents, or to what they termed gender-exclusive language, which used male referents only. They found that, in comparison to gender-inclusive language, a job description that used gender-exclusive language negatively impacted women; they reported higher anticipated job-based ostracism and perceived sexism and lower job-based motivation and identification. This work reports a high-powered, preregistered study with women that fully replicated Stout and Dasgupta’s findings. Moreover, in an exploratory analysis, we found that, for women, gender-exclusive language is perceived as sexist, which in turn predicted feelings of greater anticipated ostracism, which in turn predicted lower job-based motivation and identification. Therefore, our findings support past research that subtle linguistic cues can be interpreted as exclusionary, that this interpretation can trigger negative outcomes, and that people can experience group-level ostracism based on their social identity.