Sex Role Portrayals Research Articles

Male and female attitudes towards stereotypical advertisements: a paired country investigation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the differences in male and female attitudes and establish a causal relationship between general (a priori) attitudes towards female stereotypical advertisements and attitudes towards specific advertising stimuli, providing evidence from Greece and Cyprus.Design/methodology/approach – Male and female respondents (158 in Cyprus and 156 in Greece) indicated their general attitudes towards female stereotypes in advertising and were subsequently exposed to three stereotypical advertisements, to which they expressed their specific attitudes.Findings – The results of the study prove that in countries with similar cultural backgrounds, such as Greece and Cyprus, general attitudes towards stereotypes in advertising do not have significant differences. General attitudes towards sex role portrayal in advertising directly impact attitudes towards specific advertisements. Further, it was demonstrated that respondents' gender plays a key role in attitude formation....

Women's Feminine Role Orientation and Their Attitudes toward Sex Role Portrayals in Advertising

(1979). Women's Feminine Role Orientation and Their Attitudes toward Sex Role Portrayals in Advertising. Current Issues and Research in Advertising: Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 163-175.

Sex and the Spectacle of Music Videos: An Examination of the Portrayal of Race and Sexuality in Music Videos

This content analysis used two studies to examine sexual behaviors and sex role portrayals in music videos televised in the United States. The first study included 120 videos recorded from MTV, MTV2, VH-1, BET, and CMT and revealed African American videos were significantly more likely to portray sexual content and female characters in provocative clothing than White videos. The second study analyzed 20 videos from BET’s late-night program, Un:Cut. Results revealed Un:Cut videos depicted seven times as many sexual acts and featured significantly more discouraged sexual behaviors than videos from the five major music video channels. Findings from these studies clarify that race is an important factor when gender roles and sexual content are examined in music videos.

Gender and Personality Drivers of Consumer Mixed Emotional Response to Advertising

This research sheds insight on how consumer gender and personality produce different levels of mixed emotions in response to advertising resulting in divergent brand attitudes. Using a more complete measure of emotional response than previously used in advertising research, we manipulate the perceived incongruity between advertisement role portrayals and viewers' self concept and show that women exhibit higher levels of mixed emotions than do men, but they respond with more favorable attitudes toward the advertised brand. Further, individuals who are more neurotic, introvert, or antagonistic experience higher levels of mixed emotions, and respond with less favorable attitudes when experiencing ad-evoked mixed emotions. Implications focus on advancing mixed emotions, gender, and personality research, and on the use of sex role portrayals in advertising.

Sex-Role Portrayals in African Television Advertising

This study compares gender sex-role portrayals in television advertisements from Kenya Ghana and South Africa across Hofstede's masculinity dimension. The findings are not consistent with his framework suggesting there may be instances when utilizing his taxonomy is not appropriate for researchers and practitioners in the international sex-role portrayal area.

Gender Sex-Role Portrayals in International Television Advertising over Time: The Australian Experience

Using content analysis, the current study examines sex-role portrayals in Australian television advertisements and contrasts the results with previous studies. The findings indicate that portrayals of women are actually becoming more stereotypical in a way that favors traditional roles. Role portrayals appear to be increasingly distant from women's actual experience. In the global context, this finding is unusual given that many international studies suggest that advertising role portrayals are becoming relatively more reflective of current realities. This study adds to the current literature by highlighting the importance of longitudinal comparisons to reveal trends that may escape single snapshots.

Men's and women's responses to sex role portrayals in advertisements

What are the emotions evoked with the audience by advertisements featuring female and male models in different sex roles? Do women and men differ in their emotional and attitudinal response? And how do consumer a priori attitudes towards stereotyped portrayals affect advertising effectiveness? These and related questions are addressed in this paper by examining consumer response to magazine advertisements for a cell phone service in the Czech Republic. Selected stimuli characterize female and male models in an occupational and in a nonoccupational setting. The empirical results indicate that female and male consumers exhibit significantly different emotional and attitudinal reactions measured in terms of disapproval, approval, and surprise, attitude toward the ad, brand attitude, and purchase intention. Both sexes respond most favorably to exclusive portrayals of their own gender. In addition, females exhibit the least favorable reactions to advertisements featuring female models in roles superior to males. Across genders, responses are significantly affected by consumers' a priori attitude towards the sex role portrayal issue.

Sex-Role Portrayals and the Gender of Nations

This study compares television advertisements from Japan, Russia, Sweden, and the United States are compared. Consistent with Hofstede's framework which suggests that countries may be characterized along a continuum from masculine to feminine, the authors found that television advertisements from feminine countries featured more depictions of relationships for male and female characters than did masculine countries. Expectations of fewer gender differences in feminine countries than in masculine countries and of greater depictions of productivity being found in television advertisements from masculine countries were not realized, however. Implications of these findings for the international advertiser are considered, and future directions for research are suggested.

Attitudes of Contemporary European Women Toward Sex Role Portrayal, Company Image and Purchase Intention: The French versus U.S. Experience

The portrayal of women in advertising has received much attention over the past three decades. However, most of the research is focused on U.S. women and lacks a global perspective. Little is known about the attitudes of non-U.S. women toward female role portrayal in advertising. This study, building on previous research conducted by Ford, LaTour and Lundstrom, reports the findings regarding the attitudes of European women, specifically French, towards their sex role portrayal in advertising and its affect on purchase intention. Furthermore, it compares these results to a recent baseline study conducted in the U.S. for the express purpose of illustrating what differences, if any, exist between the cultures of women who live in two different, post-industrial societies.

Sex Role Portrayals in Turkish Television Advertisements: An Examination in an International Context

ABSTRACT This study compares Turkish advertisements with advertisements in the United States, Mexico, and Australia using Hofstede's masculinity index to predict sex-role portrayals of men and women as well as gender-specific themes depicted in advertisements. In a manner consistent with Hofstede's well known taxonomy, sex role differences between men and women in the context of themes such as productivity are found in masculine countries of the U.S., Australia, and Mexico while in the feminine country of Turkey sex-role differences between men and women are minimal and feminine values of relationship orientation are more often depicted. Practical implications of these findings for the international marketer are discussed.

An examination of the cross‐cultural female response to offensive sex role portrayals in advertising

Compares adult women’s perceptions of sex role portrayals in advertising across demo‐graphically‐diverse samples from the USA, New Zealand, Japan and Thailand. Tests a structural equations model using EQS. The findings indicate that there were varying degrees of criticism across the samples with regard to sex role portrayals, company image and purchase intentions. Finds a significant structural linkage between criticality of role portrayals and company image as well as between company image and purchase intention. Identifies the existence of “feminist consciousness” across the various samples and also examines its impact on perceptions and intentions to purchase. Presents implications for global advertisers.

You've Come a Long Way, Buddy!

With some regularity over the past several decades, the notions and images that helped define prior standards of ap- propriate male behavior have been discarded for new ones that pre- sumably better accommodated the times. As a result of the latest transformation, traditional sex role boundaries between the genders began to fade. Over the last half-decade or so advertising itself has increasingly reflected a transposition in sex role portrayals that has come to be labeled as reverse-sexism (Boddewyn, 1991). The conse- quences associated with the emergence of these sex role reversals and the accompanying possibility that men or women may react negatively to their new gender depictions in advertising are ad- dressed in this national study.

Sex role portrayal in television advertising

Men and women have been used to promoting products and services in advertisements since time immemorial. Past research has shown that their depiction was by no means accurate or realistic. Men are typically shown as “macho” while women are usually seen as housewives. Compares the portrayal of both sexes in television advertising from Singapore and Malaysia. Commercials were videotaped from SBC 5 (Singapore), RTM 1 and TV 3 (Malaysia). In addition, the findings were matched against the actual demographics of the respective countries. Although they were manifested differently, characters in both countries′ advertisements were found to be stereotyped. Demographics of the respective countries′ population were also not reflected in the commercial.

Appraising Sex-Role Portrayal in Korean Television Commercials

Appraising Sex-Role Portrayal in Korean Television Commercials

In the Pages of Ms.: Sex Role Portrayals of Women in Advertising

Abstract The stated advertising policy of Ms. magazine precludes the acceptance of advertisements for products that are “harmful” or advertisements that are insulting to women. This study employs manifest and latent content analysis to assess the extent to which Ms. advertising, over the first 15 full years of its publication has carried out this policy. The findings suggest that a substantial proportion of Ms. advertising promotes products generally considered “harmful.” Also, while the portrayal of women as subordinate to men or as merely decorative has decreased over time, Ms. advertising has increasingly portrayed women as alluring sex objects. Possible reasons for the trends revealed here are discussed.

Sex Roles in Advertising: A Comparison of Television Advertisements in Australia, Mexico, and the United States

In the past, research has found that the portrayal of sex roles in advertising has not reflected equality or reality. Further, studies typically have examined only U.S. advertising, leaving open the question of cultural influence on advertising's sex role portrayals. The author offers a new analysis of sex roles in advertising and compares content analysis findings for U.S., Australian, and Mexican television advertisements. Results reveal differences in the portrayal of the sexes in U.S. advertisements. Australian advertisements show somewhat fewer sex role differences and Mexican advertisements show slightly more sex role differences than U.S. advertisements. Stereotypes are found in the advertising of all three countries, but are manifested in different ways.

Self-Regulation of Sex-Role Stereotyping in Advertising: The Canadian Experience

The advertising industry in Canada began self-regulation of sex role stereotyping in 1981. This action was undertaken in response to public pressure and the threat of government regulation. The experiment has been a qualified success. The current self-regulatory system needs to be well advertised and equipped with a compulsion mechanism to be fully responsive to the public's concern about sex role portrayal.

An Exploratory Study of the Effect of Sex Role Stereotyping on Attitudes Toward Magazine Advertisements

In this study, sex role portrayals were manipulated in an advertisement created for the study. The roles used were professional and housewife. One hundred one respondents chosen from several southwest towns were exposed to either the professional version of the ad or the housewife version, and were asked to evaluate the ad on a semantic differential scale. One of the items in the scale was an evaluation of the role of the individual in the ad, and was used in a manipulation check. The result of the ad evaluations indicated significantly higher scores for the professional version of the ad than for the housewife version.

A longitudinal view of women's role portrayal in television advertising

This article concerns an issue of interest to both advertisers and consumers: female sex-role portrayal in television advertisements. A comparative study using content analysis was conducted for television commercials observed in 1977 and in 1980, respectively. Significant changes between these years are noted on a number of dimensions relevant to the way women are represented in television commercials. These changes are also interpreted in a broader historical perspective whenever possible. Both positive and negative changes are noted and discussed.

Challenging Traditional Sex Role Stereotypes in Careers Education Broadcasts: the reactions of young secondary school pupils

Abstract The ways in which television presents images of male and female roles to the young have recently been subjected to much scrutiny and criticism. Educational television has the scope to contribute to changes in the balance of sex role portrayal but little is known of the likely effects of modifications. This paper reports an experimental study of young secondary school pupils’ reactions to careers education materials in which men and women are shown in occupations traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Children viewing counter‐stereotyped programmes are found to be no less stereotyped in their career beliefs than peers viewing a ‘traditional’ programme or controls who view no programme. The results are discussed in terms of the resilience of sex role and career beliefs in early adolescence and it is concluded that intervention attempts will need to be more extensive and more protracted.