Parents' Animate and Inanimate Pronouns With Robots

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Topic - Technology, Media & Child Development

Abstract

Robots are an interesting example for researchers studying how children understand living things. We considered how conversations with parents may contribute to children’s developing concepts about robots by exploring parents’ pronoun use when playing with a robot with their child. Patterns of parents’ pronoun use may have implications for children’s ideas about where robots fall in the ontology of living and non-living things. We coded parents’ use of animate pronouns (“he” and “she”) and inanimate pronouns (“it”) when interacting with an educational robot (Dash, made by Wonder Workshop) while engaged in an open-ended game together. We investigated parents’ proportion of use of animate and inanimate pronouns, and whether they used “he” most often, as shown in earlier research where parents used masculine labels for gender-neutral characters (DeLoache, Cassidy & Carpenter, 1987).
Participants included 61 parent-child pairs (32 girls, 29 boys; 38 mothers, 23 fathers). Children ranged from three to six years, with a mean age of 61 months. Data were collected at a children’s museum in Northern California. Dyads were invited to play a game, moving the robot (named “Skye”) to three different colored corners on a play mat. Researchers hinted that Skye would sometimes follow if they clapped or spoke. Parents’ pronouns for Skye were identified and coded.
Parents were more likely to use the animate pronouns “he” and “she” with their daughters compared to their sons. Parents’ combined proportion of uses of “he” and “she” for the robot were analyzed in a 2 (Parent gender) x 2 (Child gender) ANOVA. A significant main effect of child gender, F(1,57)=9.19, p=.004, showed that parents of girls used animate pronouns 82% of the time when referring to Skye; parents of boys used animate pronouns 56% of the time. As Figure 2 shows, this was mostly accounted for by parents’ use of “he.” A separate analysis on proportion of “he” pronouns also showed a main effect of child gender, F(1,57)= 9.26, p=.004, with parents of girls using “he” 74% of the time for Skye while parents of boys used “he” 44% of the time. In contrast, parents were more likely to use the inanimate pronoun “it” with their sons when referring to the robot. A 2 (Parent gender) x 2 (Child gender) ANOVA on the proportion of parents’ use of “it,” showed a significant main effect of child gender F(1,57)=9.26, p=.004. On average, parents of boys used “it” for Skye 42% of the time; parents of girls used “it” for Skye 19% of the time.
In addition to aligning with the well-known gendered bias toward “he,” these findings show that parents’ language about robots also may vary depending on children’s gender. Perhaps parents’ pronoun use reflects societal biases that girls may be more interested in biological topics, while boys may be more interested in mechanical topics. This language difference may have implications for children’s developing ideas about robots within the domains of living and nonliving entities.

Authors

• Allison Nicole Hu, University of California - Santa Cruz
  Presenting Author

• Sam R McHugh, University of California - Santa Cruz
  Non-Presenting Author

• Leila Takayama, University of California, Santa Cruz
  Non-Presenting Author

• Maureen A Callanan, University of California - Santa Cruz
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kevin Weatherwax, University of California, Santa Cruz
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Jipson, California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo
  Non-Presenting Author