[2603.26682] Operationalizing Perceptions of Agent Gender: Foundations and Guidelines

Computer Science > Human-Computer Interaction arXiv:2603.26682 (cs) [Submitted on 10 Mar 2026] Title:Operationalizing Perceptions of Agent Gender: Foundations and Guidelines Authors:Katie Seaborn, Madeleine Steeds, Ilaria Torre, Martina De Cet, Katie Winkle, Marcus Göransson View a PDF of the paper titled Operationalizing Perceptions of Agent Gender: Foundations and Guidelines, by Katie Seaborn and 5 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:The "gender" of intelligent agents, virtual characters, social robots, and other agentic machines has emerged as a fundamental topic in studies of people's interactions with computers. Perceptions of agent gender can help explain user attitudes and behaviours -- from preferences to toxicity to stereotyping -- across a variety of systems and contexts of use. Yet, standards in capturing perceptions of agent gender do not exist. A scoping review was conducted to clarify how agent gender has been operationalized -- labelled, defined, and measured -- as a perceptual variable. One-third of studies manipulated but did not measure agent gender. Norms in operationalizations remain obscure, limiting comprehension of results, congruity in measurement, and comparability for meta-analyses. The dominance of the gender binary model and latent anthropocentrism have placed arbitrary limits on knowledge generation and reified the status quo. We contribute a systematically-developed and theory-driven meta-level framework that offers operational...