“Female Breadwinner and Male Housekeeper” Atypical Gender Role Mechanism in Advertising
Author
Abstract
In past years, companies have used images of atypical gender roles in advertisements. For instance, a homemaker was depicted by a man and the breadwinner by a woman. However, the use of traditional gender roles is still the mainstream practice. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of different levels of atypical gender roles on advertising. Moreover, this study also included two important moderators: need for cognition and humor, which would lead an audience to rethink the meaning of gender roles. This study performed three between-subject experiments to examine the research arguments. The findings confirmed that a low-level atypical gender role causes the highest cognition dissonance, and influences advertising effects. Furthermore, after testing the effects of two moderators, a moderate level of an atypical gender role might be a riskless strategy for depicting gender roles in advertising. Moreover, gender stereotypes in Taiwan have weakened; that is, a typical gender role might no longer be accepted in general and advertisers and marketers should rethink their advertising strategies when depicting gender roles.
Key Words
atypical gender role advertisement, cognitive dissonance, need for cognition, humor
