Advertising's effects on men's gender role attitudes

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research,  May, 1997  by Jennifer Garst,  Galen V. Bodenhausen

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The results of the present research suggest that more traditional participants have a greater sensitivity to issues of age and, more specifically, a bias toward youth, or ageism, than less traditional participants. In fact, it was only the more traditional participants who perceived the younger models to be more masculine, similar to themselves, and somewhat more attractive than the older models. Research has found that traditionalism is tied to authoritarian personality characteristics and that, in turn, authoritarianism is tied with prejudiced attitudes toward many social groups (Dillehay, 1978). Thus, it is tempting to speculate that more traditional individuals may also tend to be more ageist than less traditional individuals.

The short-term influence of media depictions is especially interesting considering the prevalence of largely stereotypic media images in our daily lives (e.g., Busby, 1975; Durkin, 1985a; Lovdal, 1989; Pearson et al., 1991; Signorielli & Lears, 1992). Although the present research only examined the short-term influence of media images, it is interesting to speculate whether repeated exposure to traditional images will, over the long term, translate to stable attitude change for less traditional men. This is an even more pertinent question given that media images are continuing to invade more and more facets of our lives. Televisions now play in airports and in schools, advertisements precede video and cinema movie presentations, and audio advertisements now even play while listeners are "on hold" on the telephone. In addition, even short-term attitude change can have important implications for human behavior. For example, for a period of time after exposure to images reinforcing traditional masculine behavior, even less traditional men may revert to more dominating, sexist reactions toward women. This possibility represents an especially important avenue for future research.

The overall implication of this study is that male gender role attitudes are complex and that it is difficult to change these attitudes in all men using the same methods. In line with Durkin's (1985b) argument that individual difference variables moderate the impact of mediated models on gender role attitudes, the present research suggests that the influence of male media images is contingent on viewers' prior gender role attitudes. While it appears that less traditional men's attitudes are susceptible to male media images, the attitudes of more traditional men, on the other hand, are less flexible, causing them to set up strict boundaries or definitions of what are appropriate male interests and behaviors. Anything that conflicts or contradicts this definition may be rejected. Thus, the present research casts doubts on the feasibility of creating dramatic changes in more traditional men's gender role attitudes through mass media channels because these men appear to reject images that do not fit their frameworks for appropriate male roles. In fact, it is interesting to speculate whether more traditional men's gender role attitudes may be more stable than less traditional men just because they do tend to reject more images of masculine behaviors and interests.