Assessing the Influence of Gender and Sexual Self-Schema on Affective Responses to Sexual Content in Advertising

Abstract

This investigation contributes to work on emotion-based advertising by testing responses to three types of sexual stimuli in commercials: ads featuring women, men, or both women and men. As expected, affective and attitudinal responses were most favorable to opposite-sex stimuli, followed by mixed-sex stimuli, with same-sex imagery evaluated least favorably. In addition, the relationship between Sexual Self-Schema (SSS) and emotional response revealed that SSS significantly predicted females' affective reactions to commercials featuring opposite sex models and couples, but not same-sex models. For male viewers, only a marginal link existed between SSS and affect in response to female models. The findings provide evidence that both gender and predispositions to sexual stimuli should be considered when assessing emotional reactions to sex in advertising.