This aricle examines the matchup hypothesis or the notion that the congruence in advertisements between spokesperson characteristics and product attributes is related to observed variations in source credibility, product evaluations, perceived product gender, and other measures of advertising and communication effectiveness. Schema theory is used to interpret the results of previous inquiries into the matchup hypothesis, and the results of two experiments that provide additional insight into how schema might be changed by a spokesperson/product match are reported. Areas of future research into the matchup hypothesis on schema theory implications are discussed. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Recent research has compared male and female trends in violent offending in Uniform Crime Report (UCR) arrest data with similar trends derived from victims' reports in the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and has concluded that the two data sources produce contrary findings. In this article, we reassess this issue and draw different conclusions. Using pooled National Crime Survey (NCS) and NCVS data for 1973 to 2005, we find that the female‐to‐male offending rate ratios for aggravated assault, robbery, and simple assault have increased over time and that the narrowing of the gender gaps is very similar to patterns in UCR arrest data. In addition, we find that these patterns are in part caused by larger decreases in male than female offending after the mid‐1990s and not by recent increases in violent offending rates among females. We conclude that changes in the gender gaps in aggravated assault, robbery, and simple assault are real and not artifacts; therefore, these changes deserve serious attention in future research. We conclude with a discussion of several hypotheses that might account for a narrowing of the gender gap in nonlethal violent offending over time.

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Research Summary: This paper reviews and evaluates the existing (and limited) evidence that increases in incarceration have affected the ability of residential neighborhoods to perform their traditional social control functions. It suggests that, although comparatively weak, the evidence points to the increases in the level and clustering in social and geographic space of incarceration as contributing to changes in the social organization of affected communities by weakening family formation, labor force attachments, and patterns of social interaction among residents. At the same time, however, the paper does find support for the contention that incarceration leads to reductions in crime in affected communities. Policy Implications: To the extent that mass incarceration disrupts patterns of social interaction, weakens community social organization, and decreases the stigma of imprisonment, its longer‐run effects may be to reduce its effectiveness.