Gender-neutral language, persuasion, and policy preferences II

Last registered on December 03, 2024

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Gender-neutral language, persuasion, and policy preferences II

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0014931

Initial registration date

November 30, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

December 03, 2024, 1:38 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

Peru

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Thomas Fujiwara

Affiliation

Princeton University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Lucia Del Carpio

PI Affiliation

ITAM

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Carlos Sanz

PI Affiliation

Bank of Spain

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2024-12-02

End date

2025-07-15

Keywords

Behavior, Gender, Governance, Other

Additional Keywords

Policy preferences, policy support, gender-neutral language, inclusive language, persuasion.

JEL code(s)

P, Z13, J16

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

This is a second pilot study for a project studying how inclusive language (particularly gender-neutral language) affects the persuasiveness of messages aiming to boost support for certain policies. The first pilot was registered as AEARCTR-0014012.

In Spanish, like many gendered-grammar languages spoken by 39% of the world population (Jakiela and Ozier, 2018), all nouns are assigned to a male or female gender. The traditional default is to use the masculine form as a “generic” when referring to an unspecified sex. A growing (and controversial) movement has challenged this norm, making it a political issue. For example, "employee" in Spanish is either the male noun "empleado" or the female noun "empleada," and historically there has been no word for a non-gendered "employee." Gender-neutral language in our context consists of stating "empleado o empleada" instead of only "empleado" when referring to an "employee.”

In an online survey in Spanish, Peruvian citizens will be provided with short briefs and policy proposals on two context-relevant topics: one related to social inclusion and diversity (bilingual education) and another related to a trade-off between environmental conservation and economic activity (mining). The research design cross-randomizes two aspects of the briefs and proposals that respondents see: i) whether the proposed policy is progressive (left-wing) or conservative (right-wing); and ii) whether gender-neutral language is used in the briefs.

This research design allows us to estimate the effect of gender-neutral language on the persuasiveness of the briefs (i.e., if using it makes the respondent more or less likely to support the proposal) separately for progressive and conservative messages and for each of the issues we study. For example, our design allows us to test if gender-neutral language makes a progressive (left-wing) message on an economic issue less persuasive, but would have smaller effects if the message was conservative or if it was about a social issue.

The research design also randomizes the salience and format of gender-neutral language (whether the respondent sees both proposals with gender-neutral language, both proposals without it, or one proposal with or without gender-neutral language).

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Del Carpio, Lucia, Thomas Fujiwara and Carlos Sanz. 2024. "Gender-neutral language, persuasion, and policy preferences II." AEA RCT Registry. December 03. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14931-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention (Hidden)

Intervention Start Date

2024-12-02

Intervention End Date

2025-02-15

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Our main outcome is whether the respondent is willing to provide a name for a potentially public online petition with text similar to the proposal she read.

We also will use an outcome whether the respondent states if she agrees with the proposal. We will allow three potential answers to this question (agree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree).

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

To study the intensive margin of agreement, we will also ask the respondents to rate their level of agreement on a 0-10 scale.

Moreover, after reading both proposals and answering the questions that generate the primary outcomes, respondents are asked two questions that can, presumably, be affected by the different treatments. These are support for the use of gender-neutral language and how credible/trustworthy they found the proposals shown to them.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

See "Experimental Design (Hidden)" field and the pre-analysis document.

Experimental Design Details

The entire study consists of a short online survey expected to take less than 10 minutes for respondents to complete. Respondents will be adults based in Peru.

The survey begins with a brief set of questions (gender, age, education, and mother tongue).

Then, each respondent is provided with two policy briefs. One regards bilingual education (school children in Peru being taught in both Spanish and an indigenous language). The second regards environmental policy towards mining (a major contributor to Peru’s economic activity, but also an activity associated with environmental damages). All messages are based on factual and research-based arguments, reflecting current policy debates in Peru.

Whether they see the bilingual education or the mining brief first or second is randomly assigned. Below we describe a case where bilingual education is shown first. At the time respondents see the bilingual education policy brief, the Qualtrics platform randomly assigns respondents to either a "progressive message" (arguing in favor of bilingual education) or a "conservative message" (arguing against it). Moreover, we cross-randomize the use of gender-neutral language in the messages. Messages can be:

i) non-gender-neutral: nouns and adjectives are used in the generic male form. For example, when referring to a set of students, the gender-neutral version of the brief would use “alumnos”.

ii) 100% gender-neutral: the same text as (i), but with nouns and adjectives used in gender-neutral form, so that it says “alumnas y alumnos” instead of “alumnos”.

iii) 50% gender-neutral status: the same text as (ii), but 50% of the time, the noun is substituted by a non-gendered noun. For example, the use of “estudiantes” instead of “alumnos” or “alumnas y alumnos,” since “estudiante” is another word in Spanish for “student” that does not connote gender and (in traditional Spanish grammar) could refer to a male or female student.

iv) “X-gender-neutral”: the same text as (iii), but now gender-neutral form is implemented using the the “x” character. For example, “alumnxs” instead of “alumnos”.

Then the respondent will be asked whether or not they support the policy and would be willing to sign an online petition in favor of it.

After this, the respondents will also be provided with a brief on mining, that will have an analogous set of (randomly assigned) variations, both in the progressive and conservative message dimensions and in the use of gender-neutral language or not.

Similarly, respondents will be asked if they support the policy position they just read about, and whether they would be willing to sign an online petition in favor of it.

A brief final set of questions is then asked and the survey concludes.

Randomization Method

The Qualtrics platform will perform the randomization.

Randomization Unit

Randomization is at the "brief" level: each respondent sees two briefs (one on each topic). Each time a brief is shown to her, a variation of the brief of a given topic is chosen. The order of the topics of briefs shown is also randomly determined.

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

4,500 respondents collected in two waves (design is not clustered)

Sample size: planned number of observations

4,500 respondents collected in two waves (design is not clustered)

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

When a brief is shown to the respondent, there is a 25% probability it is assigned to each of the four previously discussed gender-neutral language arms. There is also a (independently and cross-randomized) 50%-50% chance the brief will have a "conservative" or "progressive" position on the topic. Which topic a respondent sees first is also randomized with a 50%-50% chance.

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB