Who’s the surgeon?” Cognitive Implications of Gendered Language

Psycholinguistic evidence shows that grammatical gender can shape mental representations, influencing how individuals interpret ambiguous scenarios. This study investigates whether varying the linguistic formulation of the “specialist riddle” affects the ability to recognize the surgeon as a woman. We tested four versions of the riddle on Italian high-school students (n = 691), manipulating the term used for “surgeon” to compare the masculine form, a control condition, a gender-neutral periphrasis, and an innovative gender-neutral form. Participants exposed to the masculine generic form perceived the riddle as more difficult and were markedly less likely to identify the surgeon as a woman compared to those exposed to the gender-neutral formulations, especially the innovative one. These findings illustrate how grammatical gender can influence mental representations and highlight the potential of alternative linguistic forms to mitigate the effects of the generic masculine or the “male as default” bias.