The Influence of Grammatical Gender on Object Conceptualization Is Weak and Language‐Dependent

Bibliographic Data

ID7150268
AuthorsH Xiao (0000-0003-2471-7084, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, corresponding author), Anita Cremers (0000-0002-7435-6515, Filologijos Fakultetas, Vilniaus Universitetas), Alexandre Cremers, Camille Straboni (0009-0000-6648-7657, Département d’Études Cognitives (ENS–PSL)), Brent Strickland (0000-0002-7573-3722, Institut Jean Nicod), Sharon Peperkamp (0000-0001-5985-8878, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique)
Year2026
Volume50
Issue1
Pagese70176-e70176
Publication date2026-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCognitive Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0364-0213 • E-ISSN: 1551-6709
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/cogs.70176
PMID41589911
OpenAlexW7125823142
LanguageEN
References cited60

Do we make gendered associations with objects whose linguistic labels have masculine/feminine grammatical gender? This question derives from the neo‐Whorfian view that language shapes our conceptualizations of the world. Previous research has provided mixed answers. Here, we present three experiments where we tested for the gender effect on object conceptualization using a word association approach: a first group of participants generated adjectives for nouns referring to objects, and a second group subsequently rated those adjectives for masculinity/femininity. In Experiment 1, with native French speakers, we tested semantically related object nouns that have opposite grammatical gender (masculine vs. feminine) in French; in Experiment 2, with native French and German speakers, we tested translation equivalents having opposite grammatical gender in the two languages. Results from both experiments showed the absence of a gender effect in French, while a small gender effect was found in German. In both experiments, nouns had been presented with a gender‐marked determiner. In Experiment 3, we tested a new group of German participants on the same items, which were now presented without a determiner; we again observed a small gender effect. Consistent with previous findings, we also found that people ascribe more feminine qualities to natural entities and masculine qualities to artificial entities. Taken together, we conclude that the influence of grammatical gender on object conceptualization is weak and dependent on language

Conceptualization · German · Grammar · Grammatical category · Grammatical Gender · Noun · Categorization, perception, and language · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access