General Process Model of the GLLE
A general process model of the gender-linked language effect:
Antecedents for and consequences of language used by men and women
Abstract
The Gender-Linked Language Effect has been found with great consistency over the past two
decades across a wide variety of contexts. Observers reading transcripts of natural
communication rate women (whom they can not identify as such) higher on Socio-Intellectual
Status (SIS) and Aesthetic Quality (AQ), and men higher on Dynamism (D). But what is the
causal chain that leads to this remarkably constant result? The present paper presents a general
process model to explain the effect. Constructs of the model include: the speaker’s situational
inputs, perception of context, gender-linked language schemata and stereotypes, and gender-
linked language behaviors, as well as the hearer’s perception of context, gender-linked language
schemata and stereotypes, judgments of SIS, AQ, and D, and behaviors toward the speaker. A
total of 48 theorems are derived from the model.