Inferring Pink- and Blue-Collar Jobs: Children's Eye Movements When Reading Gender-Stereotyped Occupations

Adult readers form inferences while they read, including those corresponding to expectations about the stereotypical gender associated with particular occupations. For example, when reading "The surgeon reminded herself to check on the patient," adult readers experience a "mismatch effect" when they encounter the unexpected mismatching female pronoun. The current study aimed to explore whether children, ages 8 to 12 years old, draw gendered inferences about occupations while they are reading sentences. The eye-movement record indicated that developing readers do show a gender mismatch effect. Readers had longer total reading times, had longer second-pass reading times, and made more regressions out of the pronoun in the mismatch condition compared to the match condition. Pronoun mismatch also affected skipping rates, total times, go-past times, and regressions out of the two-word post-pronoun region. Overall differences as a function of pronoun type, reader's age, occupation gender, and occupation familiarity are also reported.