ArticlePsychological science2021
The Unintended Consequences of the Things We Say: What Generic Statements Communicate to Children About Unmentioned Categories.
Article in Psychological science, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- How syntax promotes stereotypes: Assessing the role of pragmatic inference.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Article
- When Do Generics Feel Justifiable? A Registered Report Bridging Key Theories.Journal of cognition · 2026Article
- Time from structure: Children infer the temporal order of past events from visual arrays.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2025Article
- Gesture counteracts gender stereotypes conveyed through subtle linguistic cues.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Epistemic language in news headlines shapes readers' perceptions of objectivity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Generically partisan: Polarization in political communication.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- The influence of linguistic form and causal explanations on the development of social essentialism.Cognition · 2022Article
- Does It Matter How We Speak About Social Kinds? A Large, Preregistered, Online Experimental Study of How Language Shapes the Development of Essentialist Beliefs.Child development · 2021Article
- Advancing Developmental Science via Unmoderated Remote Research with Children.Journal of cognition and development : official journal of the Cognitive Development Society · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Adults frequently use generic language (e.g., "Boys play sports") to communicate information about social groups to children. Whereas previous research speaks to how children often interpret information about the groups described by generic statements, less is known about what generic claims may implicitly communicate about unmentioned groups (e.g., the possibility that "Boys play sports" implies that girls do not). Study 1 (287 four- to six-year-olds, 56 adults) and Study 2 (84 four- to six-year-olds) found that children as young as 4.5 years draw inferences about unmentioned categories from generic claims (but not matched specific statements)-and that the tendency to make these inferences strengthens with age. Study 3 (181 four- to seven-year-olds, 65 adults) provides evidence that pragmatic reasoning serves as a mechanism underlying these inferences. We conclude by discussing the role that generic language may play in inadvertently communicating social stereotypes to young children.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.