Abstract:
Considerable research indicates that supposedly generic words like he and man are commonly interpreted as feminine exclusive. This study focuses on the reported effects of pronouns (he, she, his and her) on memory as a function of personal relevance (Crawford & English, 1984) and further addresses the practical significance of personal relevance relative to other memory mediators such as interest. Our results suggest that pronouns alone may not be a necessary or sufficient mediator of personal relevance nor recall memory when compared to other mediators like interest.