Gender and language in online job advertisements - a cross-cultural study

The aim of this project is to investigate the use of gender-fair language from a cross-linguistic perspective. Specifically, we are interested in whether the use of gender-fair language correlates with socio-economic rankings of gender equality and with structural features of a language. We decided to analyze online job advertisements, as they reflect common language use and can easily be compared across languages. Moreover, formulations in job advertisements have been shown to impact personnel selection via the way target groups are addressed and referred to. In the present study we examined to what extent job advertisements are formulated in a gender-fair way and how this correlates with factors such as language, culture as well as status and gender-typicality of the job advertised. The data consisted of job advertisements published online in four European countries which occupy different positions in socio-economic rankings of gender equality (World Economic Forum, 2011): Switzerland (10), Austria (rank 34), Poland (42), and Czech Republic (75). We randomly selected 100 job advertisements from four lines of business characterized by different proportions of female employees – steels/metals, science, restaurants/food services, and health care. The advertisements were analyzed with regard to the linguistic form of the job title and the remaining text; we also noted indicators of job status, reference to gender-typical traits, pictures of women/men and other information which might be relevant to the use of gender-fair language (e.g., equal opportunity policies). A first analysis of the data indicates that the phrasing of job titles is closely related to the gender-typicality of a profession. While mainly gender-fair forms are used in healthcare, masculine forms are used more often in the domain of steels and metals. Feminine forms only, however, are almost never used. Cultural differences as well as correlations with associated variables will be discussed

Proteomic Profiling of Leukocytes Reveals Dysregulation of Adhesion and Integrin Proteins in Chronic Kidney Disease-Related Atherosclerosis

A progressive loss of functional nephrons defines chronic kidney disease (CKD). Complications related to cardiovascular disease (CVD) are the principal causes of mortality in CKD; however, the acceleration of CVD in CKD remains unresolved. Our study used a complementary proteomic approach to assess mild and advanced CKD patients with different atherosclerosis stages and two groups of patients with different classical CVD progression but without renal dysfunction. We utilized a label-free approach based on LC-MS/MS and functional bioinformatic analyses to profile CKD and CVD leukocyte proteins. We revealed dysregulation of proteins involved in different phases of leukocytes' diapedesis process that is very pronounced in CKD's advanced stage. We also showed an upregulation of apoptosis-related proteins in CKD as compared to CVD. The differential abundance of selected proteins was validated by multiple reaction monitoring, ELISA, Western blotting, and at the mRNA level by ddPCR. An increased rate of apoptosis was then functionally confirmed on the cellular level. Hence, we suggest that the disturbances in leukocyte extravasation proteins may alter cell integrity and trigger cell death, as demonstrated by flow cytometry and microscopy analyses. Our proteomics data set has been deposited to the ProteomeXchange Consortium via the PRIDE repository with the data set identifier PXD018596.Peer reviewe

Verbs as Linguistic Markers of Agency - The Social Side of Grammar

Basic grammatical categories may carry social meaning irrespective of their semantic content. In a set of four studies, we demonstrate that verbs – a basic linguistic category present and distinguishable in most languages – are related to the perception of agency, a fundamental dimension in social perception. In an archival analysis on actual language use in Polish and German, we found that targets stereotypically associated with high agency (men and young people) are presented in the immediate neighborhood of a verb more often than non-agentic social targets (women and old people). Moreover, in three experiments using a pseudo-word paradigm, verbs (but not adjectives and nouns) were consistently associated with agency (but not communion). These results provide consistent evidence that verbs, as grammatical vehicles of action, are linguistic markers of agency. In demonstrating meta-semantic effects of language, these studies corroborate the view of language as a social tool and of language as an integral part of social perception

A Cross-Cultural Replication on Humanness Attribution The Role of Agency and Communion Ascriptions

Previous research showed that targets achieving (vs. not) a goal were ascribed more humanness. We conceptually replicate previous studies by involving a population of English and Arabic speakers to test cross-cultural replicability of the effect and the contribution of sensorimotor systems in agency representation. Participants (Ntot = 637) saw animations, where goal achievement and trajectory were manipulated. They evaluated agency, communion, humanness, and attitudes (respect and liking) toward presented targets. Goal achievement versus failure but not movement trajectory increased agency and communion ratings, which in turn affected humanness, respect, and liking (Study 1 and Study 2). Goal manipulation also directly affected humanness ratings (Study 2). Altogether, our findings suggest a superior role of success over trajectory manipulation in perceiving inanimate objects as having humanness

Gender-Fair language and professional self-reference: The case of female psychologists in Polish

The struggle to achieve gender equality is accompanied by efforts to introduce gender-fair language. In languages with grammatical gender this implies the use of gender-appropriate forms (feminine for women and masculine for males). In the present research, results of a mixed method approach—a corpus analysis, a survey, and an experiment—provide consistent evidence that in Polish, feminine forms are still infrequent in women’s self-reference and that women psychologists continue to use masculine titles. Moreover, a qualitative inquiry examines the reasons why women prefer masculine over feminine job titles. Integrating findings from the two-stage design, we are able to identify the obstacles to promoting social change with the help of language and to understand the reasons behind them

The benefits and pitfalls of language change – The case of gender-fair language use

Gender-fair language (GFL) is a symmetric linguistic treatment of women and men. To create GFL two principle strategies can be deployed. Neutralization means that gender-unmarked forms (police officer) are used to substitute the male-biased (policeman). Feminization, implies that feminine forms of nouns are used systematically to make female referents visible. The results of a comprehensive European research program provide evidence in support of a non-discrimination policy in language, yet identify the potential setbacks preventing linguistic reforms to be effective. In general, studies indicate positive effects of GFL. In an applied context, for example women feel more motivated to apply for the position if a job advertisement is formulated in a GFL. However, negative effects of reformed usage were also reported specifically when GFL is novel. For example, a woman referred to as a chairperson was evaluated lower in occupational status than a woman referred to as a chairman

Selected Atherosclerosis-Related Diseases May Differentially Affect the Relationship between Plasma Advanced Glycation End Products, Receptor sRAGE, and Uric Acid

Our study aimed to identify the relationship between advanced glycation end products (AGEs), soluble receptor for advanced glycation end products (sRAGE), the AGEs/sRAGE, and uric acid (UA) levels in selected atherosclerosis diseases, i.e., abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA), aortoiliac occlusive disease (AIOD), and chronic kidney disease (CKD), resulting from apparent differences in oxidative stress intensity. Furthermore, we suggest that increased AGEs levels may stimulate an antioxidant defense system reflected by the UA level. The studied group size consisted of 70 AAA patients, 20 AIOD patients, 50 patients in the pre-dialyzed group (PRE), and 35 patients in the hemodialyzed group (HD). The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to measure AGEs and sRAGE levels. We found a significantly higher concentration of AGEs in CKD patients as compared to AAA and AIOD patients. Furthermore, the sRAGE level was higher in the CKD patients in comparison to AIOD and AAA patients. UA level was significantly higher in the PRE group compared to AAA patients. In conclusion, the diseases included in this study differ in the anti- and prooxidant defense system, which is reflected in the relations between the AGEs, the sRAGE, the AGEs/sRAGE ratio, as well as the UA levels