Grammatical gender and anthropomorphism: "It" depends on the language

When English speakers anthropomorphize animals or objects, they refer to such entities using human pronouns (e.g., he or she instead of it). Unlike English, which marks gender only for humans, gendered languages such as French grammatically mark gender not only for humans but also for nonhumans. Research has shown that in gendered languages, although gender marking of nonhuman nouns is semantically arbitrary, people ascribe male and female properties to nonhuman entities consistent with their grammatical gender. Because grammatical gender conveys human-related properties, we question whether grammatically gender-marking nonhumans may elicit anthropomorphism tendencies. Across six studies, we show that gender marking of nonhuman nouns in gendered languages influences the way individuals mentally represent these entities and increases their anthropomorphism tendencies. We demonstrate the effects both by comparing anthropomorphism as a function of natural differences in languages with French-English bilinguals (Study 1) and by training native English speakers to use gender marking for nonhuman nouns as speakers of gendered languages do (Study 2). The following studies further demonstrate the effects within the French language by measuring (Study 3a) and manipulating (Studies 3b and 4) the salience of gender markings of nonhuman nouns. In Study 5 (preregistered), we replicate our basic finding and establish grammatical gender as an important linguistic element in shaping French speakers' anthropomorphism tendencies. We discuss the findings and the limitations in the culture-language-cognition triad and layout their implications for the debate on the extent to which language can mediate categorical and perceptual judgments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

COVID-19 is Feminine: Grammatical Gender Influences Danger Perceptions and Precautionary Behavioral Intentions by Activating Gender Stereotypes

Gendered languages assign masculine and feminine grammatical gender to all nouns, including nonhuman entities. In French and Spanish, the name of the disease resulting from the virus (COVID-19) is grammatically feminine, whereas the virus that causes the disease (coronavirus) is masculine. In this research, we test whether the grammatical gender mark affects judgments. In a series of experiments with French and Spanish speakers, we show that grammatical gender affects virus-related judgments consistent with gender stereotypes: feminine- (vs. masculine-) marked terms for the virus lead individuals to assign lower stereotypical masculine characteristics to the virus, which in turn reduces their danger perceptions. The effect generalizes to precautionary consumer behavior intentions (avoiding restaurants, movies, public transportation, etc.) as well as to other diseases and is moderated by individual differences in chronic gender stereotyping. These effects occur even though the grammatical gender assignment is semantically arbitrary.

The Cultivation of Parent and Child Materialism: A Parent-Child Dyadic Study

Research has shown that television viewing cultivates a materialistic worldview in children. However, other socialization factors may also influence children's materialism. The current research tests two socialization pathways of parental influence: (a) an indirect path in which parents pass on their own materialism to their children, and the parent's materialism is at least partly the result of a parent cultivation effect (parent cultivation); (b) an indirect path in which parents pass on their television viewing behavior to their children, which in turn positively predicts the children's level of materialism (child cultivation). The results of two studies (initial study plus direct replication, N = 818) of U.S. parent-child dyads with 14- to 17-year-old children support the first path but not the second: The relation between parent TV viewing and child materialism is mediated through parent materialism. Child TV viewing is positively correlated with child materialism, but is nonsignificant when parent materialism is controlled.

Centennials, FOMO, and Loneliness: An Investigation of the Impact of Social Networking and Messaging/VoIP Apps Usage During the Initial Stage of the Coronavirus Pandemic

The current COVID-19 pandemic has had obvious, well-documented devastating effects on people's physical health. In this research, we investigate its potential effects on people's mental health. Many people have experienced social isolation, as countries attempt to stem the spread of the disease through confinement and other forms of social distancing. Intuitively, such social isolation may increase feelings of loneliness, and people may take logical steps to reduce their feelings of social isolation and loneliness. One route is through the use of social networking apps (e.g., Facebook, Instagram) and messaging and VoIP apps (e.g., WhatsApp, iMessage). In this research, we investigate the effects of pandemic-induced social isolation on social networking and messaging apps, and potential related effects on loneliness. We surveyed young adults (N = 334) who are part of the Centennial cohort (born after 1995) from three different countries (Italy, Argentina, UK) and obtained their screen time usage data over a 4-week period starting from mid-March 2020. This sampling procedure allowed us to obtain data from respondents who were experiencing different degrees of mandated social isolation (lockdowns), which enabled us to determine whether social network and messaging app usage increased as a function of social isolation, and to test potential effects on levels of loneliness. Results showed that only social network usage increased in the initial stage of confinement as a function of lockdown initiation. Additionally, social network app usage was associated with increased feelings of loneliness, and this relation was mediated by fear of missing out (FOMO). In contrast, messaging app usage was associated with decreased feelings of loneliness, and was unrelated to FOMO. These results suggest that technology may be useful for mitigating the impact of loneliness during social isolation but that it is necessary to promote usage of messaging and VoIP apps, rather than social networking apps, because they are directly associated with decreases in loneliness without increasing FOMO.

How does social distancing during COVID-19 affect negative moods and memory?

In the absence of an effective vaccine or treatment, the current best defence against COVID-19 is social distancing - staying at home as much as possible, keeping distance from others, and avoiding large gatherings. Although social distancing improves physical health in terms of helping to reduce viral transmission, its psychological consequences are less clear, particularly its effects on memory. In this research, we investigated the effect of social distancing duration on negative moods and memory. The relation between social distancing duration and both negative mood and memory errors followed the same U-shaped function: negative moods and memory errors initially decreased as social distancing duration increased, and then at approximately 30 days, they began to increase. Subsequent analyses indicated that memory errors were mediated by lonely mood in particular. Thus, short-term social distancing might benefit psychological well-being and memory performance, but extended social distancing has a negative impact on mood and memory.

Individual Differences in Differentiation in the Rating of Personal Values: The Role of Private Self-Consciousness

Past research has shown that when personal values are measured by a rating procedure, respondents often show little differentiation among the values, tending to assign similar, high ratings to all of them. Data from two studies suggest that level of private self-consciousness moderates the degree of differentiation: individuals higher in private self-consciousness make greater distinctions among the values. Consistent with past research, these studies suggest that those higher in private self-consciousness have a better-articulated self-schema and are more aware of internal dispositions. Discussion addresses theoretical issues for self-consciousness and personal values research.

Motivated response styles: the role of cultural values, regulatory focus, and self-consciousness in socially desirable responding

Three studies investigated the relations between cultural values and socially desirable responding, the processes that underlie them, and factors that influence the strength of the relations. Results indicated that individualism was associated with self-deceptive enhancement but not impression management, whereas collectivism was associated with impression management but not self-deceptive enhancement. Regulatory focus was found to mediate these relations. A promotion focus mediated the relation between individualism and self-deceptive enhancement, whereas a prevention focus mediated the relation between collectivism and impression management. This mediation pattern held regardless of whether individualism and collectivism were determined at the group level (Study 1) or measured at the individual level (Studies 2-3), whether socially desirable responding was operationalized as a scale measure (Studies 1-3) or as reactions to behavioral scenarios (Study 2), and across different measures of regulatory focus. This general mediation pattern was found to be moderated by type of self-consciousness (Study 3): The promotion focus mediation was stronger for participants low (vs. high) in private self-consciousness, and the prevention focus mediation was stronger for participants high (vs. low) in public self-consciousness.

The measurement of personal values in survey research: a test of alternative rating procedures

When survey researchers are interested in measuring the personal values of respondents, they often use a rating rather than a ranking method because it is easier and faster to administer and yields data that are amenable to parametric statistical analyses. However, because personal values are inherently positive constructs, respondents often exhibit little differentiation among the values and end-pile their ratings toward the positive end of the scale. Such lack of differentiation may potentially affect the statistical properties of the values and the ability to detect relationships with other variables. Two experiments were conducted via mail surveys to general population samples to test alternative rating methods designed to increase differentiation and reduce end-piling in the rating of personal values. The results suggest that a procedure in which respondents first pick their most and least important values, then rate them (most-least), provides more differentiation and less end-piling than a simple rating procedure (rate-only). Increased differentiation for the most-least method influenced the fit of latent structure and resulted in more robust relations between the values ratings and other criterion variables. These results generalized across type of values scale, number of values rated, and number of rating points.