Van Oost Pascaline, Nera Kenzo, Yzerbyt Vincent
Institute for Research in the Psychological Sciences, Universitécatholique de Louvain, Place Cardinal Mercier 10 box L3.05.01, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Faculty of Psychological Sciences and Education, Universitélibre de Bruxelles, Avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium.
Psychol Belg. 2025 May 22;65(1):132-145. doi: 10.5334/pb.1342. eCollection 2025.
In many countries, the use of gender-fair language is heavily debated. In France, some opponents to gender-fair language have argued that it hinders language comprehension for people who have difficulties with language (PDLs). This argument was notably promoted by (far) right-wing personalities and newspapers. The justification-suppression model of prejudice and the concept of ideology malleability suggest that such a defence of PDLs may be a strategy to oppose gender-fair language and promote the status quo. We hypothesized that threatening participants with gender-fair language would lead high-SDO individuals to report greater concern for PDLs. In two experimental studies (n = 1117, France), we did not find support for our prediction. Overall, SDO was negatively correlated with support for PDLs, whereas participants supporting gender-fair language were also more concerned with PDLs. This suggests that contrary to what some conservative commentators have claimed, gender-fair language supporters do not overlook the question of language accessibility, as opposed to anti-egalitarians. To our knowledge, this is the first research to bridge literature on the justification of prejudice and gender-fair language.
在许多国家，关于使用性别平等语言的问题存在激烈争论。在法国，一些反对性别平等语言的人认为，它会妨碍有语言障碍的人（PDLs）理解语言。这一观点尤其得到了（极）右翼人士和报纸的宣扬。偏见的正当化-抑制模型以及意识形态可塑性的概念表明，这种对有语言障碍者的辩护可能是一种反对性别平等语言并维持现状的策略。我们假设，用性别平等语言威胁参与者会使高社会支配取向（SDO）的个体报告对有语言障碍者更大的担忧。在两项实验研究（n = 1117，法国）中，我们没有找到支持我们预测的证据。总体而言，社会支配取向与对有语言障碍者的支持呈负相关，而支持性别平等语言的参与者也更关心有语言障碍者。这表明，与一些保守评论家所声称的相反，与反平等主义者不同，性别平等语言的支持者并没有忽视语言可及性问题。据我们所知，这是第一项将关于偏见正当化的文献与性别平等语言联系起来的研究。
