Does the gender asterisk (“Gendersternchen”) as a special form of gender-fair language impair comprehensibility?

Figures & data

Table 1. Overview of the five categories regarding the representation of gender in languages according to Gygax et al. (2019).

Category	Example languages	Features
genderless languages	Chinese, Finnish	only a few nouns are assigned to a specific gender
genderless languages with a few traces of grammatical gender	Basque, Oriya	most personal nouns and pronouns are not assigned to a specific gender, but in some nouns, adjectives, and verbal forms a person’s gender is indicated using suffixes
natural gender languages	English	most personal pronouns are assigned to a specific gender, but most nouns are not
languages with a combination of grammatical gender and natural gender	Dutch, Norwegian	pronouns are typically assigned to a specific gender as well as some nouns
grammatical gender languages	French, German, Spanish	almost all nouns and personal pronouns are assigned to a specific gender

Table 2. Typical forms of gender-fair language in German (Diewald & Steinhauer, 2020).

Gender-fair form	Example
neutral forms	die Lehrkräfte, “the teaching staff (plural)”
nominalized participles	die Spielenden, ~“those who play”
pair forms	Spielerinnen und Spieler, “players (female) and players (male)”
slash forms	die Spieler/innen, ~“the fe/male players”
capital-I forms	die SpielerInnen, ~“the feMale players”
the gender gap	die Spieler_innen, ~“the fe_male players”
the gender colon	die Spieler:innen, ~“the fe:male players”
the gender asterisk	die Spieler*innen, ~“the fe*male players”

Table 3. Psychometric properties of the variables in both experiments.

	Exp. 1		Exp. 2
Variable	AM (SD)	Ω	AM (SD)	Ω
Subjective comprehensibility^a	3.96 (0.90)	.80	3.43 (1.07)	.91
Word difficulty^a	1.22 (0.41)	.76	2.20 (0.96)	.82
Sentence difficulty^a	2.19 (0.97)	.86	2.36 (0.87)	.81
Aesthetic appeal^a	3.10 (0.94)	.86	3.11 (0.86)	.80
Time on task in minutes	4:23 (1:47)	–	2:46 (0.49)	–
Comprehension^b	–	–	2.95 (1.46)	.59
Attitudes toward gender-fair language^a	3.35 (1.18)	.89	–	–

Abbreviations used in the first line: Exp. = Experiment. “–” indicates that this variable was not assessed in this experiment or that this measure is not applicable here.

^a1 = stimmt nicht, not agreed to 5 = stimmt genau, totally agreed. ^bSubjects could score between 0 and 5 on the comprehension test.

Table 4. Intercorrelations of the variables in both experiments.

	Experiment	sc)	wd)	sd)	ae)	tot)
01) subjective comprehensibility (sc)
02) word difficulty (wd)	1	−.21**
	2	−.51**
03) sentence difficulty (sd)	1	−.62**	.37**
	2	−.73**	.43**
04) aesthetic appeal (ae)	1	.49**	−.15*	−.35**
	2	.54**	−.26**	−.42**
05) time on task (tot)	1 2	−.20* −.06	.07 .15	.01 -.04	−.23** .06
06) comprehension (comp)	1	–	–	–	–	–
	2	.40**	−.36**	−.37**	.20*	.00
07) attitudes toward gender-fair language	1	.22**	.04	−.14	.25**	−.22**
	2	–	–	–	–	–

*p < .05; **p < .01. “–” indicates that at least one of these variables was not assessed in this experiment.

Figure 1. Box plots for subjective comprehensibility by experimental condition in Experiment 1.

MOF: masculine-only forms condition, GAP: gender asterisk in its plural forms condition, GAS: gender asterisk in its singular form condition. y-axis: from 1 – not agreed to 5 totally agreed

Figure 2. Box plots for word difficulty by experimental condition in Experiment 1.

MOF: masculine-only forms condition, GAP: gender asterisk in its plural forms condition, GAS: gender asterisk in its singular form condition. y-axis: from 1 not agreed to 5 totally agreed

Figure 3. Box plots for sentence difficulty by experimental condition in Experiment 1.

MOF: masculine-only forms condition, GAP: gender asterisk in its plural forms condition, GAS: gender asterisk in its singular form condition. y-axis: from 1 not agreed to 5 totally agreed.

Figure 4. Box plots for aesthetic appeal by experimental condition in Experiment 1.

MOF: masculine-only forms condition, GAP: gender asterisk in its plural forms condition, GAS: gender asterisk in its singular form condition. y-axis: from 1 not agreed to 5 totally agreed

Figure 5. Box plots for time on task by experimental condition in Experiment 1.

MOF: masculine-only forms condition, GAP: gender asterisk in its plural forms condition, GAS: gender asterisk in its singular form condition.

Table 5. Means and standard deviations for the different conditions in both experiments.

		Text with masculine-only forms	Text with the gender asterisk in plural forms	Text with the gender asterisk in singular forms
Variable	Experiment	AM (SD)	AM (SD)	AM (SD)
Subjective comprehensibility	1	4.33 (0.61)	3.98 (0.83)	3.38 (1.06)
	2	3.72 (1.00)	3.57 (1.00)	3.03 (1.10)
Word difficulty	1	1.29 (0.49)	1.22 (0.42)	1.14 (0.26)
	2	2.34 (1.07)	2.22 (0.97)	2.05 (0.84)
Sentence difficulty	1	2.02 (0.89)	2.10 (0.84)	2.56 (1.19)
	2	2.17 (0.73)	2.23 (0.95)	2.68 (0.85)
Aesthetic appeal	1	3.37 (0.97)	2.96 (0.90)	2.88 (0.88)
	2	3.11 (0.94)	3.29 (0.80)	2.96 (0.82)
Time on task in minutes	1	3:59 (1:29)	4:23 (1:33)	4:58 (2:18)
	2	2:47 (1:00)	2:50 (46)	2:41 (41)
Comprehension	1	–	–	–
	2	3.32 (1.23)	2.63 (1.75)	2.87 (1.34)
Attitudes toward gender-fair language	1	3.67 (1.07)	3.17 (1.25)	3.15 (1.18)
	2	–	–	–

“–” indicates that this variable was not assessed in this experiment.

Table 6. Results of the Kruskal-Wallis-H-tests of the two experiments.

Variable	Experiment	df	H	η^2H	p
Subjective comprehensibility	1	2	18.40	.13**	< .001
	2	2	8.39	.06*	.02
Word difficulty	1	2	0.90	.00	.64
	2	2	1.09	.00	.58
Sentence difficulty	1	2	4.26	.02	.12
	2	2	7.65	.05*	.02
Aesthetic appeal	1	2	7.58	.04*	.02
	2	2	2.77	.01	.25
Time on task	1	2	5.61	.03	.06
	2	2	0.29	.00	.87
Comprehension	1	–	–	–	–
	2	2	2.96	.01	.23

*p < .05; **p < .01. “–” indicates that this variable was not assessed in this experiment.

Figure 6. Box plots for subjective comprehensibility by experimental condition in Experiment 2.

MOF: masculine-only forms condition, GAP: gender asterisk in its plural forms condition, GAS: gender asterisk in its singular form condition. y-axis: from 1 not agreed to 5 totally agreed.

Figure 7. Box plots for word difficulty by experimental condition in Experiment 2.

MOF: masculine-only forms condition, GAP: gender asterisk in its plural forms condition, GAS: gender asterisk in its singular form condition. y-axis: from 1 not agreed to 5 totally agreed.

Figure 8. Box plots for sentence difficulty by experimental condition in Experiment 2.

MOF: masculine-only forms condition, GAP: gender asterisk in its plural forms condition, GAS: gender asterisk in its singular form condition. y-axis: from 1 not agreed to 5 totally agreed.

Figure 9. Box plots for aesthetic appeal by experimental condition in Experiment 2.

MOF: masculine-only forms condition, GAP: gender asterisk in its plural forms condition, GAS: gender asterisk in its singular form condition. y-axis: from 1 not agreed to 5 totally agreed

Figure 10. Box plots for time on task by experimental condition in Experiment 2.

MOF: masculine-only forms condition, GAP: gender asterisk in its plural forms condition, GAS: gender asterisk in its singular form condition

Figure 11. Box plots for comprehension by experimental condition in Experiment 2.

MOF: masculine-only forms condition, GAP: gender asterisk in its plural forms condition, GAS: gender asterisk in its singular form condition. The y-axis shows how many out of 5 possible points the subjects scored in the comprehension test.

Gygax, P. M., Elmiger, D., Zufferey, S., Garnham, A., Sczesny, S., von Stockhausen, L., Braun, F., & Oakhill, J. (2019). A language index of grammatical gender dimensions to study the impact of grammatical gender on the way we perceive women and men. Frontiers in Psychology, 10(1604). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01604

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Diewald, G., & Steinhauer, A. (2020). Handbuch geschlechtergerechte Sprache – Wie Sie angemessen und verständlich gendern [Handbook on gender-fair language – How to use it appropriately and comprehensibly]. Duden.

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