ArticlePsychonomic bulletin & review2026
Hearing singular "they" primes both "they" and "he/she".
Article in Psychonomic bulletin & review, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
The English language has recently expanded its pronoun system to include the use of singular they when referring to a person whose pronouns are they/them. What cognitive mechanism accounts for increasing fluency in the use of this form? We examine whether hearing someone use singular they increases the rate and accuracy of using this form through a priming mechanism, despite prior failures to find such an effect. We show that it does for both college students (Experiment 1) and a community sample of adults (aged 30-70 years). We further ask what linguistic representations are activated with priming from singular they. Priming from hearing they increased the use of both singular they and he and she, suggesting activation of the class of third-person pronouns. But it had a stronger priming effect on they and also reduced errors for singular they, suggesting that it also specifically activates representations related to singular they.
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