The parental role - Descriptive stereotypes about mothers, fathers, and parents

Previous research has revealed that the gendered division of labor in the household leads to gender-stereotypical associations with female and male parents - people associate mothers more strongly with communal traits (e.g., affectionate, helpful, warm) and behaviors (e.g., comforting a child), and fathers more strongly with agentic traits (e.g., assertive, decisive, independent) and behaviors (e.g., providing the household income; Banchefsky & Park, 2015; Park, Smith & Correll, 2010). To refer to a person in a parental role, people can use the gender-specific nouns “mother” and “father”, or the generic noun “parent” which does not indicate the gender of the referent. So far, parental stereotypes have been investigated only for the gender-specific parental roles of “mother” and “father”. This study aims to investigate how language can reduce gender stereotyping of the parental role by comparing the generic role noun (“parent”) to gender-specific role nouns (“mother” and “father”). More specifically, this research examines whether people ascribe different traits to the generic role “parent” in comparison to the gender-specific roles “mother” and “father”. The current study is the first one to investigate the impact of language on the content of parental stereotypes. It also extends previous research by examining the different facets of agency and communion in the social perception of parental roles.