Women's Responses to Sex in Advertising

Abstract

Advertising researchers have neglected to analyze women's reactions to sexual appeals, and researchers are just beginning to recognize the utility of personality variables as predictors of responses to sex in advertising. This study addresses both areas by testing women's reactions to a sexual commercial, and examining the relationship between women's sexual schemas with their responses. Sexual schemas are people's cognitive views of themselves that predict approach/avoidance to sexual behavior and sexual information. Overall, women who have more positive sexual self-schemas (sex positive) were found to have more positive attitudes-toward-the-ad and brand interest for the sexual ad. Purchase intention, however, was not affected. The findings and their implications are discussed.

Women's responses to stereotypical media portrayals: An fMRI study of sexualized and domestic images of women

“…That is, to the extent someone endorsed traditional gender roles, they showed more ventral striatum activity to sexualized images. This was surprising in light of the fact that endorsing traditional gender roles is often associated with reported dislike of explicitly sexual content (Sciglimpaglia et al, ; Mittal & Lassar, ; Reichert & Fosu, ; Sengupta & Dahl, ). Therefore, we wanted to see whether the correlation also existed for domestic images—which one might expect would resonate with more traditional women—or whether it was unique to sexualized images.…”

“…Results from the development of individual differences scales such as sociosexual attitudes, erotophobia–erotophilia, sexual liberalism, and sexual self‐schema—which predict an array of attitudes and behaviors—demonstrate high variation in these measures among women (Mercer & Kohn, ; Fisher et al, ; Simpson & Gangestad, ). And indeed, women with more conservative attitudes toward sex have a more negative reaction to sexualized ads than women with more liberal attitudes (Sciglimpaglia et al, ; Mittal & Lassar, ; Reichert & Fosu, ; Sengupta & Dahl, ).…”

“…Therefore, it is important to know how women are responding to these portrayals of other women. Within gender, attitudes about gender roles may also play an important part in one's evaluation of these images; past work has shown wide variation in women's attitudes toward female depictions in advertising (Lundstrom & Sciglimpaglia, ; Mittal & Lassar, ; Reichert & Fosu, ; Sengupta & Dahl, ). The current study addresses these questions by focusing specifically on women's self‐reported and neural responses using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to the two most common female media portrayals—sexualized and domestic (Dominick & Rauch, ; Duker & Tucker, ).…”

¿Influye la intensidad de los estímulos sexuales y el feminismo en las actitudes de los consumidores hacia las apelaciones sexuales y el juicio ético? Una perspectiva ecuatoriana

“…En cuanto a conductas explícitas, éstas se pueden ver reflejadas; por ejemplo, cuando una mujer toca sus pechos de manera sexual (Yang et al, 2010), cuando una pareja -hombre y mujer -se besan o se abrazan (Garcia & Yang, 2006;Huang, 2004;Pope et al, 2004); o posiciones sexuales que se asemejen al coito (Cheung et al, 2013;Severn et al, 1990;So, 1996). Por otro lado, en las apelaciones sexuales implícitas se incluye; por ejemplo, comportamientos como el uso de ropa provocativa entre una pareja heterosexual (Reichert & Alvaro, 2001), una pose sugerida que demuestre una oportunidad sexual (Patzer, 1980;Reichert et al, 2007) o fabricar un escenario en el cual se denote que una pareja va a tener un encuentro sexual inminente (Horton et al, 1982;Mittal & Lassar, 2000;Reichert & Fosu, 2005).…”

Female Bareness in Print Advertisements: Do Religiosity and Gender Matter?

“…Many studies show that the gender has a significant influence on viewers' responses to the bareness in advertisements (Dianoux & Linhart, 2010;Jeong & Hwang, 2005;Nelson & Pack, 2008;Sabri & Obermiller, 2011). The use of the opposite sex in the commercial produces a very strong result (Liu, Li, & Cheng, 2006;Reichert, LaTour, & Kim, 2007;Reichert & Fosu, 2005;Sengupta & Dahl, 2008), particularly with regard to female bareness (Jeong & Hwang, 2005). Studies conducted on the relationship between the consumers' gender and their attitudes toward the use of eroticism in advertisements state that women are more sensitive to erotic provocation (Dudley, 1999).…”