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Updated: Jan 28, 2026
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The Influence of Grammatical Gender on Object Conceptualization Is Weak and Language-Dependent
Hualin Xiao1,2,3, Alexandre Cremers4, Camille Straboni5
1Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (ENS-PSL, EHESS, CNRS).
Cognitive Science
|January 27, 2026
Summary
Grammatical gender
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Linguistics
- Psycholinguistics
Background:
- The neo-Whorfian hypothesis suggests language influences thought.
- Previous research on grammatical gender and object conceptualization yielded mixed results.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if grammatical gender influences object conceptualization.
- To examine the impact of linguistic gender on word associations with objects.
Main Methods:
- A word association approach was employed across three experiments.
- Participants generated adjectives for object nouns, which were then rated for masculinity/femininity.
- Experiments involved native French and German speakers, with and without determiners presented.
Main Results:
- No significant gender effect on object conceptualization was found in French.
- A small gender effect was observed in German, regardless of determiner presence.
- A tendency to associate feminine qualities with natural entities and masculine qualities with artificial entities was confirmed.
Conclusions:
- The influence of grammatical gender on object conceptualization appears weak.
- This effect is language-dependent and potentially modulated by other factors.
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