sex bias epicenes h stephen straight right mention importance essentially psychological evidence favor idea epicene biases perceptions favor male interpretations considerable number studies effect attempts interpretation comes essentially studies take two tacks one model involves interpretation task kind subjects induced provide form evidence male female interpretation referent generic epicene independent variable pronoun coreferent epicene antecedents invented sentences presented subjects subjects give names characters draw pictures say directly whether character male female etc type began back 1970 almost impossible locate study kidd famous version probably martyna 1978 1980 work latest version aware experiment gastil 1990 also experiments kosrohshahi 1989 moulton robins elias 1978 switzer 1990 type involves production tasks subjects selected coreferential pronoun complete sentences antecedents refering generic epicene referents independent variable degree sexstereotypicality generic referent e g marine vs teenager vs nurse type study inaugurated martyna 1978 1980 also used gastil almost studies uses strongly correlat male interpretations referent naturalistic data shows result referents like lumberjack particpants congressional sex scandal used say child teacher others along lines supplied upon request explanations interesting ones someone like tends skeptical pernicious influences grammar aspects cognition please let start one mcconnell ginet number articles e g 1988 moulton back 1977 moulton eschews notions markedness instead compares kleenex effect whereby identity prestigious subset assumed superordinate category result people tend think subset prototypical kleenex prototypical paper tissues sanka prototypical decaf coffee us note involves cognitive interaction lexical semantics nothing morphosyntactic going refs put full names whenever remember nt want look arts gastil john 1990 generic pronouns sexist language sex roles 23 629643 kidd v 1970 study images produced use male pronouns generic moments contemporary rhetoric communications 1 2530 khosroshahi f atima 1989 penguins nt care women language society 18 505525 martyna wendy 1978 mean j communication 28 131138 martyna wendy 1980 psychology generic masculine r borker n ferman women language literature society mcconnell ginet sally 1988 language gender frederick newmayer linguistics cambride survey vol iv moulton janice 1977 myth neutral man vetterling braggan j elliston j english feminism philosophy moulton janice robinson cheris e 1978 psychology action sex bias language use american psychologist 33 10321036 switzer j 1990 impact generic word choices sex roles 22 6982 michael newman dept educational theory practice ohio state university mnewman magnus acs ohiostate edu