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

Abstract

Women tend to be portrayed in a sexualized or domestic manner in mainstream advertising; importantly this trend holds not only for ads targeting men but also for those targeting women themselves. Such a focus on sexualized portrayals in particular may not seem strategic given a wealth of evidence suggesting that women evaluate these portrayals quite negatively. Consumer attitudes toward domestic portrayals are more mixed but, unsurprisingly, vary according to how much a woman identifies as traditional. If female consumers do not evaluate these common portrayals positively, why might they persist? Past work suggests a disconnect between reported attitudes toward general visual sexual stimuli and physiological and neural responses; therefore, it is plausible that neural responses to stereotypical female portrayals in advertising may be at odds with reported attitudes and may have a bigger impact on consumer behavior. The current study exposed women to sexualized, domestic, and control images in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner as an initial test of this idea. We found that participants reported liking both domestic and control images more than sexualized images. In contrast, they showed more activity in regions associated with reward and arousal (ventral striatum and amygdala, respectively) while viewing sexualized images relative to both control and domestic images. Surprisingly, ventral striatum response to sexualized ads was stronger for women who endorsed traditional attitudes than those who reported less traditional attitudes. These results suggest that despite reporting negative attitudes toward sexualized portrayals, women may in fact have a favorable response to these images.

Media images and the gendered representation of chefs

“…In this research, online images were used to explore the differences between the ways in which male and female chefs are portrayed (Brotherton & Wood, 2008). Online images provide a relevant source of data for this research because they are able to produce social meaning, reflect social understandings, and reaffirm power asymmetries and socially constructed gender patterns (Scollon, & Wong Scollon, 2003;Vezich et al, 2017).…”

“…There is also an argument that women challenge stereotypical views and engage in jobs that are considered more suitable for their counterparts (Statistics New Zealand, 2015;Vezich, Gunter, & Lieberman, 2017). In order to fit with the perceived standards and social stereotypes accepted for traditionally male jobs, it is argued that women, for example, may start employing more masculine speech strategies in an attempt to sound like men (Madichie, 2013;Harris & Giuffre, 2015;Matwick, 2017), or taking on aggressive male characteristics and competitive interactional styles (Bartholomew & Garey, 1996;Harris & Giuffre, 2010).…”

Nagość w kampaniach społecznych w świetle koncepcji zarządzania uwagą

“…Taka sytuacja może mieć związek z większym przyzwoleniem na wykorzystywanie kobiecej nagości w sferze publicznej oraz ze stereotypowym przekonaniem o atrakcyjności kobiecego ciała (konotacje seksualne) (por. Vezich, Gunter, Lieberman, 2017). Recepcja kampanii nie jest przedmiotem niniejszego opracowania, mogłaby jednak stanowić ciekawy przedmiot dalszych badań 59 .…”

Consumer Behavior Research: Theoretical and Methodological Paradigms Trending

“…For example, fmri has been used to analyze the response of consumers to marketing, and how women respond to sexualized and domestic images of women (Vezich, Gunter, & Lieberman, 2017). fmri has also been used to explain how some consumers of financial products tend to position themselves as preys, which causes them to judge the relationship with investors in negative terms (Mesly, 2017).…”