The effect of provocation in the form of mild erotica on attitude to the ad and corporate image: Differences between cause-related and product-based advertising

Provocative advertising is characterized by a deliberate attempt to gain attention through shock. This research investigates the reactions of individuals to a provocative appeal for a cause as opposed to a provocative advertisement for a standard consumer product, using mild erotica as the element of provocative imagery. An experiment using 391 adult subjects was conducted, and two analyses were performed. The first examined the effect of stimulus type (mildly erotic/nonerotic) by product category (cause appeal/consumer product) on attitude to the ad. The second examined the effect of stimulus type (mildly erotic/nonerotic) by cause (AIDS [acquired immunodeficiency syndrome]/SIDS [sudden infant death syndrome]) on corporate image. Both analyses also included gender as a third independent variable. The results suggest that people prefer mildly erotic ads generally, that an organization using mild erotica in appeals for a cause will be viewed more favorably where the erotica is congruent with the cause, and that women may be more responsive to mild erotica in cause appeals than are men.

Influence of gender on mental health literacy in young Australians

Objectives: To determine the effects of gender on mental health literacy in young people between 12 and 25 years of age. Design: Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing was employed to conduct a cross-sectional structured interview focusing on young people's awareness of depression and psychosis. Participants: The sample comprised 1207 young Australians (539 males and 668 females) between the ages of 12-25 recruited from two metropolitan and two regional areas within Victoria. Six hundred and six respondents were presented a depression vignette and 601 were presented a psychosis vignette. Results: Female respondents (60.7%) were significantly more likely to correctly identify depression in the vignette as compared to male respondents (34.5%). No significant gender differences were noted for the psychosis vignette. Males were less significantly likely to endorse seeing a doctor or psychologist/counsellor for the treatment of psychosis. Males were also significantly more likely than females to endorse alcohol as a way of dealing with depression and antibiotics as useful for dealing with psychosis. Conclusion: Gender differences in mental health literacy are striking. Males showed significantly lower recognition of symptoms associated with mental illness and were more likely endorse the use alcohol to deal with mental health problems. Such factors may contribute to the delays in help seeking seen in young males. Further research is needed to delineate how these gender differences in young people may obstruct help seeking, early intervention and other aspects of mental health service delivery.

Sex Differences in Symptoms of Depression in Unrelated Individuals and Opposite-Sex Twin and Sibling Pairs

Diagnosis of a major depressive episode by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association requires 5 out of 9 symptoms to be present. Therefore, individuals may differ in the specific symptoms they experience and reach a diagnosis of depression via different pathways. It has been suggested that depressed women more often report symptoms of sleep disturbance, appetite or weight disturbance, fatigue, feelings of guilt/worthlessness and psychomotor retardation than depressed men. In the current study, we investigate whether depressed men and women differ in the symptoms they report. Two samples were selected from a sample of Dutch and Australian twins and siblings. First, Dutch and Australian unrelated depressed individuals were selected. Second, a matched epidemiological sample was created consisting of opposite-sex twin and sibling pairs in which both members were depressed. No sex differences in prevalence rates for symptoms were found, with the exception of decreased weight in women in the sample of unrelated individuals. In general, the similarities in symptoms seem to far outweigh the differences in symptoms between men and women. This signifies that men and women are alike in their symptom profiles for major depression and genes for depression are probably expressed in the same way in the two sexes.

Gender and consumer search of the internet

The role of gender differences in the consumption of goods and services is well established in many areas of consumer behaviour and computer use and yet there has been only limited research into such gender-based differences in the information search behaviour of Internet users. This paper reports the gender-based results of an exploratory study of consumer external information search of the web. The study investigated consumer characteristics, web search behaviour, and the post web search outcomes of purchase decision status and consumer judgements of search usefulness and satisfaction. Gender-based differences are reported in all three areas. Consideration of the results suggests they are issues which could inhibit the adoption of online purchasing by female web users. The implications of these results are discussed and a future research agenda proposed.

Enjoyment of the shopping experience:impact on customers’ repatronage intentions and gender influence

In this paper the authors investigate enjoyment of the shopping experience, its influence on consumers’ intention to repatronise a regional shopping centre and the effect of gender differences on shopping enjoyment. Four dimensions of shopping enjoyment are proposed and a 16-item measure is developed to assess 536 consumer perceptions of the shopping experience across five counties in the United Kingdom. Findings indicate that shopping experience enjoyment has a significant positive influence upon customers’ repatronage intentions. Furthermore, men are found to have a stronger relationship of enjoyment with repatronage than women. The implications of these results are discussed, together with managerial implications, study limitations, and future research directions.

Is gender a factor in perceived prison officer competence?

Background The introduction of women officers into HM Prison Service raised questions regarding women's ability to perform what had traditionally been a male role. Existing research is inconclusive as to whether female prison officers are as competent as male prison officers, and whether there are gender differences in job performance. This study examined prisoners' perceptions of male and female prison officers' performance. Hypotheses The hypotheses were that overall competence and professionalism ratings would not differ for men and women officers, but that there would be differences in how men and women were perceived to perform their roles. Women were expected to be rated as more communicative, more empathic and less disciplining. Method The Prison Officer Competency Rating Scale (PORS) was designed for this study. Ratings on the PORS for male and female officers were given by 57 adult male prisoners. Results There was no significant difference in prisoners' ratings of overall competence of men and women officers. Of the PORS subscales, there were no gender differences in Discipline and Control, Communication or Empathy, but there was a significant difference in Professionalism, where prisoners rated women as more professional. Conclusion The failure to find any differences between men and women in overall job competence, or on communication, empathy and discipline, as perceived by prisoners, suggests that men and women may be performing their jobs similarly in many respects. Women were rated as more professional, and items contributing to this scale related to respecting privacy and keeping calm in difficult situations, where there may be inherent gender biases. Copyright © 2005 Whurr Publishers Ltd.

The effect of age, gender and driver status on pedestrians' intentions to cross the road in risky situations

The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) has been used successfully in the past to account for pedestrians' intentions to cross the road in risky situations. However, accident statistics show age and gender differences in the likelihood of adult pedestrian accidents. This study extends earlier work by examining the relative importance of the model components as predictors of intention to cross for four different adult age groups, men, women, drivers and nondrivers. The groups did not differ in the extent to which they differentiated between two situations of varying perceived risk. The model fit was good, but accounted for less of the variance in intention for the youngest group (17-24) than for other age groups. Differences between the age groups in intention to cross seemed to be due to differences in perceived value of crossing rather than differences in perceived risk. Women were less likely to intend to cross than men and perceived more risk, and there were important age, gender and driver status differences in the importance of the TPB variables as predictors of intention. A key implication of these findings is that road safety interventions need to be designed differently for different groups. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A cross-culture, cross-gender comparison of perspective taking mechanisms

Being able to judge another person's visuo-spatial perspective is an essential social skill, hence we investigated the generalizability of the involved mechanisms across cultures and genders. Developmental, cross-species, and our own previous research suggest that two different forms of perspective taking can be distinguished, which are subserved by two distinct mechanisms. The simpler form relies on inferring another's line-of-sight, whereas the more complex form depends on embodied transformation into the other's orientation in form of a simulated body rotation. Our current results suggest that, in principle, the same basic mechanisms are employed by males and females in both, East-Asian (EA; Chinese) and Western culture. However, we also confirmed the hypothesis that Westerners show an egocentric bias, whereas EAs reveal an other-oriented bias. Furthermore, Westerners were slower overall than EAs and showed stronger gender differences in speed and depth of embodied processing. Our findings substantiate differences and communalities in social cognition mechanisms across genders and two cultures and suggest that cultural evolution or transmission should take gender as a modulating variable into account.

Gender, borrowing patterns and self-employment:some evidence for England

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we try to identify whether women have different borrowing patterns from men when trying to get into self-employment along with the factors that explain these different propensities. Second, we try to quantify the impact of these differences in borrowing propensity on women's willingness to become self-employed. The empirical analysis is carried out on a sample of individuals drawn from the English Household Survey of Entrepreneurship, 2003. Our results show that (1) women are less likely than men to seek external finance and that (2) gender differences in access to finance are affecting adversely the transition into self-employment. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

The impact of ageing and gender on visual mental imagery processes:a study of performance on tasks from the Complete Visual Mental Imagery Battery (CVMIB)

In this study we aim to evaluate the impact of ageing and gender on different visual mental imagery processes. Two hundred and fifty-one participants (130 women and 121 men; age range = 18–77 years) were given an extensive neuropsychological battery including tasks probing the generation, maintenance, inspection, and transformation of visual mental images (Complete Visual Mental Imagery Battery, CVMIB). Our results show that all mental imagery processes with the exception of the maintenance are affected by ageing, suggesting that other deficits, such as working memory deficits, could account for this effect. However, the analysis of the transformation process, investigated in terms of mental rotation and mental folding skills, shows a steeper decline in mental rotation, suggesting that age could affect rigid transformations of objects and spare non-rigid transformations. Our study also adds to previous ones in showing gender differences favoring men across the lifespan in the transformation process, and, interestingly, it shows a steeper decline in men than in women in inspecting mental images, which could partially account for the mixed results about the effect of ageing on this specific process. We also discuss the possibility to introduce the CVMIB in clinical assessment in the context of theoretical models of mental imagery.

The influence of perception of forgetting and gender, ethnicity, and closeness on likelihood of caregiving

As life expectancy increases, the population of older adults is increasing rapidly. The caregiving of older parents by adult children has become a normative experience. Much of the gerontological literature has examined the caregiving experience, particularly in terms of the stresses involved. However, research is only beginning to examine the factors which motivate adult children to begin caregiving. The research described here examined how an elderly parent's memory behavior might influence caregiving decisions. In addition, gender, ethnicity, and parent-adult child closeness were examined to explore how these individual difference variables might influence those caregiving decisions.^ Participants read one of two vignettes describing a social visit with an elderly widow (target). In the vignette, the elderly target experiences several instances of forgetting. The vignettes depicted forgetting behavior established in pilot work as normal or serious. The normal forgetting vignette did not arouse concern and the serious forgetting vignette did arouse concern when the middle-aged participants imagined their mothers in the role of the vignette target. Participants rated their likelihood of engaging in eight caregiving behaviors if their mothers behaved like the vignette target. They also rated their closeness with their own mothers.^ Multivariate analyses of variance indicated main effects for vignette type, gender, ethnicity, and attachment. The likelihood of caregiving was higher when forgetting was more serious and when participants were female, Hispanic, and were highly attached to their mothers. Interaction effects showed that gender differences decreased with increased seriousness of forgetting, and ethnic differences were only significant for the normal forgetting condition.^ Multiple regression analyses indicated that attachment was the most significant predictor of likelihood of caregiving. Gender and ethnicity predicted specific caregiving behaviors. Females were more likely to engage in phoning and cooking, and Hispanics were more likely to engage in visiting and suggesting mother move in. ^

Straight but not Narrow; Within-Gender Variation in the Gender-Specificity of Women's Sexual Response

Gender differences in the specificity of sexual response have been a primary focus in sexual psychophysiology research, however, within-gender variability suggests sexual orientation moderates category-specific responding among women; only heterosexual women show gender-nonspecific genital responses to sexual stimuli depicting men and women. But heterosexually-identified or “straight” women are heterogeneous in their sexual attractions and include women who are exclusively androphilic (sexually attracted to men) and women who are predominantly androphilic with concurrent gynephilia (sexually attracted to women). It is therefore unclear if gender-nonspecific responding is found in both exclusively and predominantly androphilic women. The current studies investigated within-gender variability in the gender-specificity of women’s sexual response. Two samples of women reporting concurrent andro/gynephilia viewed (Study 1, n = 29) or listened (Study 2, n = 30) to erotic stimuli varying by gender of sexual partner depicted while their genital and subjective sexual responses were assessed. Data were combined with larger datasets of predominantly gyne- and androphilic women (total N = 78 for both studies). In both studies, women reporting any degree of gynephilia, including those who self-identified as heterosexual, showed significantly greater genital response to female stimuli, similar to predominantly gynephilic women; gender-nonspecific genital response was observed for exclusively androphilic women only. Subjective sexual arousal patterns were more variable with respect to sexual attractions, likely reflecting stimulus intensity effects. Heterosexually-identified women are therefore not a homogenous group with respect to sexual responses to gender cues. Implications for within-gender variation in women’s sexual orientation and sexual responses are discussed.

Perspectives on gender, migration and transnational work: joint work of social reproduction and care in Southern Europe

This paper presents the "state of the art" and some of the main issues discussed in relation to the topic of transnational migration and reproductive work in southern Europe. We start doing a genealogy of the complex theoretical development leading to the consolidation of the research program, linking consideration of gender with transnational migration and transformation of work and ways of survival, thus making the production aspects as reproductive, in a context of globalization. The analysis of the process of multiscale reconfiguration of social reproduction and care, with particular attention to its present global dimension is presented, pointing to the turning point of this line of research that would have taken place with the beginning of this century, with the rise notions such as "global care chains" (Hochschild, 2001), or "care drain" (Ehrenreich and Hochschild, 2013). Also, the role of this new agency, now composed in many cases women who migrate to other countries or continents, precisely to address these reproductive activities, is recognized. Finally, reference is made to some of the new conceptual and theoretical developments in this area.

In journalism, we are all men: material voices in the production of gender meanings

This study uses qualitative data to examine how male and female professionals in newsrooms experience and vocalize gender both in their lifeworlds and in media production in general. The research was based on semi-structured interviews with 18 Portuguese journalists. The responses were analysed through phenomenological and feminist lenses and indicated the issues men and women considered salient or negligible within our realms of inquiry. The study used the lived experience of the media professionals to identify two clusters of meaning that help explain how material practices and norms in journalism are lived and understood in the newsroom: gender views in journalism and gender differences in day-to-day professional life. Overall, the findings confirm that organizational factors and the traditional gender system play important roles in journalists’ attitudes and perceptions about the role of gender in their work. The results are significant because they show how gender is simultaneously embodied and denied by both female and male journalists in a process of phenomenological “typification” and adoption of a “natural attitude” towards the gender system that may prevent the disclosure of new possibilities and understandings of the objective social world and of our gender relations.

The gender wage gap in the public and private sectors in Bangladesh

The gender wage gap is well studied in developed countries; however, recently it has generated much interest in developing countries. This thesis addresses three issues regarding the gender wage gap in Bangladesh. Firstly, it explores the wage determinants for formal public and private sector employees in Bangladesh and examines the gender pay gap. This is the first time different decomposition methods have been used to compare the sources of the gender wage gap as well as any potential discrimination effect in the formal sector of the Bangladeshi labour market. These decomposition methods are: the original Oaxaca (1973) and Blinder (1973) decomposition methods, the Neumark (1988), Cotton (1988), and Reimers (1983) methods, and the extended Oaxaca method including both the employment selection and the double selection correction in the wage equation. In addition to mentioned methods, to quantify the gender wage gap in monetary terms, a recently developed ‘simulated change’ approach by Olsen and Walby (2004) is also applied for the first time to the Bangladeshi data. By using the Labour Force Survey 2005-06, BBS (LFS 2005-06) data results show formal sector female employees earn about 32.1 per cent less than their male counterparts. Without considering the selection correction, a large range of human capital, demographic and labour market related variables are explained less than half of the total gender wage gap (21 to 46 per cent of the total wage gap) and the major part of the wage gap is unexplained (54 to 79 per cent of the total wage gap). This could partly be attributed to discrimination. Using the double selection correction method, the decomposition results changed where a small part of the wage gap was explained by the measured characteristics (only nine per cent of the total wage gap) and a major part is attributed to the discrimination and selection effect. The selection effect also reveals that exclusion of the double selection correction might lead to an overestimation of the gender wage gap in the formal sector of Bangladesh. In addition, results based on the Olsen and Walby (2004) simulation method show that, if the other characteristics of male and female employees were similar, ‘being female’ is sufficient, to generate significantly lower wages than males in the formal sector. If females in the workplace are treated as males, without considering any other endowment increases, females could increase their earnings by 4095.3 Taka1 per year. Results also indicate that not only endowment differences in human capital and work experience related variables were important, but discrimination appears to play a significant role in the total wage gap throughout the formal sector of the Bangladeshi labour market. Secondly, the study investigates whether public sector employees enjoyed a wage premium or not, compared to the private sector and whether the gender wage gap is greater in the public sector. In addition, the research considered whether there was an impact from the inclusion of the different selection correction terms in the wage equation. In Bangladesh, public sector employees have, on average, a 60 per cent wage premium over the private sector. Using both the original Oaxaca and the extended Oaxaca methods, where selection effect is partly captured by both explained and unexplained components, and using the public sector wage structure as the basis of the non-discriminatory wage structure, these methods revealed a considerably larger portion of explained (72 - 93 per cent of the total wage gap) and a smaller portion of unexplained part of the wage gap. However, if the selection correction is considered as another component of the decomposition outcome then the major portion of the total public and private sectors wage gap is justified (explained) by the effect of the selection correction and unexplained factors. Furthermore, a large part of the wage premium exists in favour of public sector female employees compared to males and the gender wage gap is lower in the public sector than the private sector. Finally, this study compares the gender wage gap of five different occupations. The gender wage gap is associated with labour market rigidities where one of the important factors is occupational segregation where females are disproportionately distributed in occupations resulting in lower earnings. The largest gender wage gap was found in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, production and transport labour jobs (56.4 per cent) and the lowest in the professional, technical administrative and managerial jobs (22.1 per cent). Substantial differences are found in the size of the endowment gap across occupations and larger variations occurred in the adjusted wage gap which varied from 21.4 per cent in sales and service occupations, to 100 per cent in professional and technical jobs (the highest). This too can be partly explained by discrimination. A reduction in the gender wage gap is expected not only to increase national income, but also to reduce poverty and lead to better outcomes for future generations. National policy should aim to reduce the gender wage gap and achieve gender wage equality in the formal sector; for example through a targeted program to remove the gender differences in education and to reduce the skill difference, with a better child care policy to encourage labour force retention and increased labour market experience for female employees, with anti-discriminatory policies and the enforcement of existing antidiscrimination policies, and a more equal distribution of males and females across occupations.