How Do Alternative Gendered Linguistic Forms Affect Response Behavior in Surveys?

Abstract

Using masculine forms in surveys is still common practice, with researchers presumably assuming they operate in a generic way. However, the generic masculine has been found to lead to male-biased representations in various contexts. This article studies the effects of alternative gendered linguistic forms in surveys. The language forms are evaluated on three dimensions: comparability, response behavior, and response effort. The results suggest that, compared to masculine-only forms, the use of gender-fair forms does not impair comparability and does not result in detrimental response behavior for most items.