Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Combating stereotypes ("girls do ballet") may not be as simple as conveying counter-stereotypical messages ("boys do ballet"). For example, hearing generic language ("girls/boys do X") predicted greater stereotyping among young children than hearing specific language (that girl/boy does X"), even when parents explicitly conveyed counter-stereotypical messages (Benitez et al., 2025). Why might counter-stereotypical messages delivered generically backfire, reinforcing the very stereotypes they aim to combat? We propose that generic language activates category-level representations stored in memory, bringing to mind stereotypical information about the implicated categories. 183 adults and 104 4- to 6-year-olds recalled the language (generic vs. specific) and message (stereotypical vs. counter-stereotypical) heard in 12 statements. Adults, but not children, systematically misremembered counter-stereotypical messages as stereotypical ones when language was generic. The task was difficult for children, perhaps explaining their recall patterns and high exclusion rate (48% of 200 children were excluded). Follow-up work probing recognition memory is underway.