Advances in Consumer Research Volume 6, 1979 Pages 62-65

DEMOGRAPHIC AND COGNITIVE FACTORS INFLUENCING VIEWERS EVALUATIONS OF "SEXY"

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Donald Sciglimpaglia, San Diego State University
Michael A. Belch, San Diego State University
Richard F. Cain, Jr. (student) San Diego State University
ABSTRACT
A trend toward the increasing use of sex in advertisements can hardly be disputed. One need only browse through
the newspaper or magazines or tune in the television to quickly become aware of the extensive use of some form of
sexual content or appeal, whether blatant or suggestive. As advertisers continue to increase the frequency with which
sex-involved strategies are employed, the need for evaluating the effect of such a strategy also becomes increasingly
important.
A review of the literature regarding the use of sex in ads reveals conflicting results. Opposite opinions are presented
in respect to consumers' attitudes toward the amount of sex presented (Ad Age, 1973, Ad Age, 1968, TV Guide,
1975) and their response to the same (Wise, King, Merenski, 1974). The results are more consistent with respect to
the effects on brand name recognition and recall, as Chestnut, LaChance, and Lubitz (1977) and Steadman (1969)
essentially agree that the use of female models is not likely to increase recognition for the brand. In respect to
differences in perceptions, Morrison and Sherman (1972) found that females were more likely to report on the
suggestiveness of ad copy than were males, while Wise, King and Merenski found that age of the viewer has an
effect on the perceived usefulness of sex in advertising. Finally, Peterson and Kerin (1977) found that ads using
female nudes were consistently perceived as less appealing and that those products associated with the nude ad were
seen as of lower quality. Peterson's conclusions--when considered with those presented earlier--seem to indicate that
the results of using sex in advertising is likely to vary according to who is viewing the ad; the nature of the product
advertised; and/or specific situational variables present at the time of the viewing.
The purpose of the study to be reported here, is to attempt to isolate factors that may be critical in the valuation of
the use and effectiveness of sex in advertising. This isolation is more likely to allow for causal attributions and to
serve as guidelines for the marketer concerned with the impact upon his/her product or service.
METHODOLOGY
An experimental study was conducted in which subjects were exposed to randomly ordered "print ads" for which no
products or brand names were displayed. Included were ads in which sexual content was systematically varied.
Subjects were asked to rate the "ads" on four affective scales. In addition, subjects completed a self-administered
instrument which measured various personal difference factors which the authors considered as possibly influencing
the evaluations.
Operationalizing Sex in Ads
Most of the earlier studies examining the use of sex in advertising have examined the same from a role portrayal or
nudity perspective. For this study, we have attempted to define sex according to two constructs: (1) nudity (cf.
Peterson and Kerin (1977)), and (2) suggestiveness. In respect to the former, both male and female
subjects were portrayed at three levels of nudity (see Appendix for detailed description). Freud's (1958) definition of
suggestion ("a command or piece of information that triggers or arouses an idea in a person's mind") was utilized,
and operationalized with both male and female subjects appearing together. This was done to reduce the possibility
of perceiver bias and to enhance the perception of suggestiveness. This operation-alization resulted in the use of nine
print advertisements as follows:

1. Male nude
2. Female nude
3. Male partially clothed

4. Female partially clothed

5. Male fully clothed
6. Female fully clothed
7. Male and female nude (suggestive)
8. Male and female partially clothed (suggestive)
9. Male and female fully clothed (suggestive)
For a more specific elaboration of the description of each ad, see Appendix 1.
In addition to the nine test ads, eight dummy ads were also included in the task. These latter ads were photos of
innocuous scenes such as sunsets, children, etc. Actual ads appearing in various print media were employed, with the
exception of the male nude and male-female suggestive formats for which no examples were available. In those
instances, photographs from magazines were used and presented in ad form. In each ad no brand name appeared,
and no product was represented, thus eliminating possible intervening variables. Each print ad was transformed into
a slide and presented to the respondent in various randomized sequences, along with the eight dummy ads. The
respondent was asked to rate the ads on four dimensions including: 1) in good taste, 2) appealing, 3) interesting, and
4) offensive, in respect to their use in advertising.
Respondents
Respondents included 142 students from the business school at a major university on the West Coast. Of these, 42
were female. Mean age, 24.
Instrument
The complete instrument used contained four sections. The first three sections were self-administered cognitive
measures. The fourth dealt with the subjects' evaluations of the ad portrayals on the four dimensions cited above and
used six-point, forced choice semantic differential scales. The three cognitive measures were utilized to evaluate
subjects' posture toward sex (both with respect to the societal context and with respect to personal orientation),
attitudes toward role portrayals in advertising, and personal orientation with respect to social roles. The first of these
was a modification of Ewell's Inventory of Values (1954), a thirty-eight statement Likert-type measure of overall
social values. Since many of these value statements relate to personal and societal orientations with respect to sex,
this measure of social values was used to evaluate an individual's sexual values. A high score on this scale was used
to approximate a conservative sexual orientation while a low score represented a more liberal posture. The second
cognitive measure was a twelve-item Likert scale used to evaluate an individual's attitudes toward role portrayals in
advertising and was adapted from a scale used by Lundstrom and Sciglimpaglia (1977). These items (e.g., "Ads
showmen as they really are" and "Advertisements treat women mainly as sex objects") were used as an overall
attitudinal measure of how advertising portrays both men and women. A high score on this scale represented a more
critical position toward contemporary role portrayals. The last measure utilized was Arnott's Role Orientation Scale
(1972). This ten-item Likert Scale (e.g., "A woman should expect just as much freedom of action as a man") was
used as a measure of the individual's personal orientation with respect to "proper" social roles of men and women. A
low score on this scale was interpreted as a very traditional stance with respect to social roles while a high score was
inferred to represent a more modern or "liberated" position.
Data Analysis
Responses of male and female subjects were evaluated using t-tests of means. In addition, Pearson product moment
correlations were computed between total scores on each of the three personal difference variables and the
evaluation of the experimental ads.
RESULTS
The evaluations of each of the seventeen ads were first compared between male and female subjects. The results of
the eight dummy ads showed little differences between sex, as was expected, and are not reported here. For the nine
test ads, however, a different picture was obvious. The mean responses for males and females on the four affective
scales (appeal, offensiveness, taste, interest) for each of the nine test ads are shown in Table 1 along with the
computed significance of the differences in mean evaluations. Although these four affective scales were found to be
highly intercorrelated, they are all displayed since they are assumed to tap different imputed cognitive domains.
TABLE 1
EVALUATION OF ADVERTISING PORTRAYALS BY SEX OF RESPONDENT

Inspection of Table 1 reveals two main results: 1) both nudity and suggestiveness are factors which appear to
influence the evaluation of "sexiness" of advertising portrayals, and 2) the evaluation of sexual content is a function
of the sex of the evaluator. With respect to the influence of both nudity and suggestiveness, these data imply that the
evaluation of sexual content becomes generally less positive as nudity increases. But, the suggestiveness of the
portrayal, regardless of degree of nudity plays an intervening role. The three "suggestive'' ads are consistently rated
by both male and female subjects as being in poor taste and females consistently found these ads to be personally
offensive.
With respect to the evaluation of sexual content by sex of the evaluator, the data suggest that men and women vary
markedly in their evaluation of both nudity and suggestiveness. These differences become more pronounced as the
level of sexual content increases. Considering the evaluations of the nude ads, for instance, it was found that male
and female evaluations were almost bipolar. Males tended to evaluate male nudity poorly while females evaluated
male nudity generally positively and vice versa for female nudity. For the male-female nude suggestive ad, females
evaluated this portrayal negatively while the male evaluations were generally positive.
To better understand how personal differences affect the evaluation of sexual content, correlation analysis was
performed between the evaluations of each ad and the cognitive measures collected in the first experimental session.
Correlations were computed for the entire sample and separately for men and women, these latter results being
shown in Table 2. Inspection of this data presents some interesting findings. Relative to men, women tended to
respond to the task in a much more uniform manner. For women, few correlations were found to be significant at
less than or equal to the 0.05 level and no consistent pattern was apparent. However, for men a different picture
appears. All three personal difference measures, social values, attitudes toward role portrayals and role orientation,
appear to be related to males' evaluations of sexual content. In addition, this relationship becomes more pronounced
as sexual explicitness increases. Of these three measures, social values--a measure of the subject's orientation toward
personal and social sexual mores--was found to be the most highly correlated with the four affect scales. Men with
more liberal social values were more likely to evaluate the "ads" more positively and vice versa. This relationship
becomes strongest in the "suggestive" situations and when nudity increased. For example, the twelve correlation
coefficients computed between social values and the four affect scales in the three nude portrayals ranged from
0.2191 to 0.3773 and all were highly significant. Although related to a lesser extent than were social values, attitudes
toward role portrayals and role orientation were also found to be correlated with the evaluation scales. Men who
hold more critical attitudes toward how men and women are portrayed in advertising tended to evaluate the ads more
negatively. Role orientation was related in a fashion similar to that of social values. The more modern or liberated
the men's' orientation to social roles, the more positive the evaluation of portrayals presented. Again, these
relationships were most pronounced for the more explicit conditions.
TABLE 2
CORRELATIONS BETWEEN PERSONAL DIFFERENCE MEASURES AND ADVERTISING PORTRAYAL
EVALUATIONS BY SEX OF RESPONDENT
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
This study indicates that men and women vary greatly in their evaluation of sexually related advertising portrayals.
In addition, for men these evaluations are strongly related to the individual's personal sexual orientation and to a
lesser extent with attitudes toward role portrayals and role orientation. All relationships become strongest when
nudity was most explicit and when suggestiveness was present in the portrayals. As sexual content became more
explicit, both men and women tended to evaluate portrayals of the opposite sex more highly but tended to evaluate
portrayals of the same sex in a generally negative manner.
These results, when compared to those of previous studies, tend to support the conclusion that the use of sex in
advertisements must consider situational factors as well as predispositions of the receiver. In fact, while the
experiment here differed somewhat from that conducted by Peterson and Kerin, the results indicate that viewers are
not always likely to react less favorably toward nudity. Rather, the evaluation of the appropriateness of nude models
is likely to be affected by the sex of the model and the perceiver, with each less likely to assign positive evaluations
to those depicting the same sex. The necessity of evaluating situational factors is thus obvious. Future research
studies should examine factors likely to intervene with such evaluations, including message content, media
selection, etc.
APPENDIX 1
DESCRIPTION OF ADVERTISEMENTS
REFERENCES
Catherine C. Arnott, "Husbands' Attitude and Wives' Commitment to Employment," Journal of Marriage and the
Family, November, 1972, pp. 673-687.

Robert Chestnut, Charles LaChance, and Amy Lubitz, "The 'Decorative' Female Model: Sexual Stimuli and the
Recognition of Advertisements," Journal of Advertising, 6 (Fall, 1977), pp. 11-14.
A. N. Ewell, Jr., "Inventory of Values," in A. Robinson and P. Shaver, eds., Measures of Social Psychological
Attitudes, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, An Arbor, 1972, pp. 457-463.
Sigmund Freud, as translated by N. Fodor and F. Gaynor in Freudian Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, Greenwich,
Conn., 1958.
William J. Lundstrom, and Donald Sciglimpaglia, "Sex Role Portrayals in Marketing," Journal of Marketing, July,
1977, pp. 72-79.
Bruce John Morrison, and Richard C. Sherman, "Who Responds to Sex in Advertising?" Journal of Advertising
Research, Vol. 12, April, 1972, pp. 15-19.
"Not Much Sex in Ads, AA Workshoppers Hear," Advertising Age, Vol. 44, August 6, 1973, p. 1ff.
"Nudity is Ad Fad, Not Trend, Four A's Told," Advertising Age, Vol. 39, October 28, 1968, p. 1ff.
Robert Peterson and Roger Kerin, "The Female Role in Advertisements: Soma Empirical Evidence," Journal of
Marketing, Vol. 41 (October, 1977), pp. 59-63.
Major Steadman, "How Sexy Illustrations Affect Brand Recall," Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 9, February,
1969, pp. 15-19.
Gordon L. Wise, Alan L. King and J. Paul Merenski, "Reactions to Sexy Ads Vary With Age," Journal of Advertising
Research, Vol. 14, August, 1974, pp. 11-16.
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