Gender Responses to Emotional Appeals in Advertising: Comparing Self-Reported Measures and Facial Expressions

Abstract

Gender stereotypes are shown to influence males’ and females’ emotional responses by dictating socially acceptable behaviors that hinder emotional expressiveness. Employing an experimental design, this study examines males’ and females’ emotional responses to aggressive, warm and emotionally neutral advertising stimuli and compares their reported emotional reactions to the analysis of facial expressions, a measure less susceptible to social desirability. The results demonstrate that males report higher levels of happiness and lower levels of negative emotions for the aggressive ad, whereas females report higher levels of happiness for the warm ad. Both sexes report similar negative emotions for the neutral ad, but males report greater happiness. The results from the facial expression analysis reveal a similar pattern, but males portrayed higher levels of anger for the aggressive ad compared to females. The findings contribute to the literature that employs physiological measures for advertising research yielding important managerial and social policy implications.