Gender-Related Reactions to Inappropriate Sex Appeals in Advertising

Abstract

This research investigates gender-based reactions to the use of inappropriate sexual appeals in advertising, under constrained processing capacity. In our first study, we hypothesize and find that men on average exhibit a more positive attitudinal response to inappropriate sex appeals than women when processing under constrained conditions (even though no differences are obtained under unconstrained conditions). Our second study provides support for the underlying process -and also demonstrates intra-gender variation -by showing that women with more liberal attitudes to sex per se react in a manner very similar to men; namely, they report more liking for a sex-based ad than a non-sex ad