PAPER creative project - def

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

ACADEMIC YEAR 2013/14

2nd Bachelor of Science in Communication Studies

Creative project: online survey

Attitudes towards the stereotypical man and the modern man in advertising

Florence Machiels

Project paper handed in for: Academic English for Communication Studies

Ms. Marie-Anne Verdeyen May, 22nd 2014

Creative project: online survey on attitudes towards the new man 2

Preface

Writing a paper is never easy if you try to do a nice work. Although we had the chance to set

up any creative project we wanted, and something else probably would have been less time-

consuming, I absolutely do not regret choosing to conduct an online survey. It has been very

enriching for me on several points, such as learning how to develop an online questionnaire,

learning how to profoundly analyze results through SPSS Statistics, using Academic English

language and improving vocabulary skills.

My particular interest in advertisement strategies and gender roles led me to empirical

research into gender stereotypes in media images. I chose to replicate previous research on

attitudes towards the stereotypical man and the new man in advertising. It was rather difficult

to closely simulate every measurement, which is why I facilitated my own survey to some

extent. However, since this is still a creative project, my creativity finds expression in adding

a new variable. Whereas up to now, only attitudinal gender differences have been analyzed, I

made an attempt to examine age differences towards the representation of men as well.

What resulted from that, is explained in this paper.

I would like to conclude by expressing my sense of gratitude to all respondents to the survey,

whom I have been able to count on, for their generous help. Therefore, my special thanks go

to my fellow students and awesome friends who took the time to participate in this project

without expecting anything in return. If it was not for them, this paper would not even exist.


Table of contents

Preface............................................................................................................................... 2

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 4

2. Attitudes and image: a definition ......................................................................... 6

3. Stereotypes and the ‘new man’............................................................................. 7

3.1. Changing sex roles: fact or fiction? .................................................................. 7

3.1.1. Differences in role presentation ………………………………………. 7

3.1.2. The ‘new man’ in advertisements ……………………………………. 8

3.2. Implications for marketing and advertising ...................................................... 9

4. Research design ....................................................................................................... 10

4.1. Project aims and objectives ............................................................................... 10

4.2. Survey method ..................................................................................................... 11

4.3. Measurement tools .............................................................................................. 11

5. Results......................................................................................................................... 14

5.1.1. Attitudes towards the advertisement (Aad) …………………………..14

5.1.2. Attitudes towards the brand (Ab) ……………………………………...16

5.1.3. The GAI ………………………………………………………………......17

5.1.4. Reliability tests …………………………………………………………..18

6. Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 20


1. Introduction

The ‘new man’ is a concept which undoubtedly sounds familiar to everyone. On the one

hand, this type is defined as an emotional man who does much around the house. On the

other hand, this new man is considered as someone who is very focused on his appearance

(a metrosexual). Invented around 30 years ago, the concept looks somewhat old-fashioned.

Nevertheless, the new man is generally accepted and stereotyped rather than being

completely forgotten nowadays.

In 2014, large attitudinal differences towards the modern man exist. In older generations, a

strong traditional view on sex roles predominates. Men are considered as the ones who earn

the livings, while their stay-at-home wives put food on the table and look after the children.

Young families, however, raise their children with the idea that the division of roles is no

longer gender-specific. Men do run the household and women do work fulltime, which implies

mixed sex roles. These opposite views could be identified as a generation gap in gender-

stereotyping, but there have been other transitions as well.

Not only changes in gender differences and similarities have occurred, but also a

tremendously large evolution towards an information-based society has proceeded in the last

few decades. Communication processes take place more quickly than ever due to a

multitude of modern devices, such as cellphones and the internet. At the same time, the

emergence of social media is as a godsend from heaven to the advertising industry. Hence,

apart from traditional communication means like television, radio and news magazines,

advertising makers immerse themselves deeply into the fast and low-priced way of internet

advertising. Primarily the younger generations are not to be separated from their laptops or

smartphones, which is why they act as the perfect target audience for online marketers.

The media are of great influence in the growing acceptance of the new man. Since the

eighties, the new man is being hyped by newspapers, magazines and television programs.

While at the very beginning of the conceptualization, the new man was presented as

emotional and caring, this meaning has shifted slightly to fashionable (just think of David

Beckham). Today, the modern man is like a relic of gender history and besides that, it still is

a terrific marketing tool. Do advertising makers currently meet the image of the modern man

consciously in order to persuade their customers? To find this out, one needs to be sure

whether gender-stereotypes, which confirm this ‘popularity’ of the new man, indeed exist.


Academic research therefore appeals to socio-economic theories. The study of this project

appeals to the potential customers themselves.

Partly, the survey is a replication of previous research1 into men’s stereotyping in

advertisements, carried out by a Ghent University student in 2003 in order to obtain a

bachelor’s degree in Applied Economic Sciences. In what is next, men’s and women’s

attitudes towards both the traditional, stereotypical man and the modern, a-stereotypical man

are treated. The objectives and research hypotheses are explained and subsequently, the

research method and operationalization are illustrated. Furthermore, a summary of the

results gained from the survey are described and finally, an overall conclusion from the

attitudes towards the (a-)stereotypical man is drawn.

1 Declercq, W. (2003). Stereotypes in reclame: impliciete attitudes ten opzichte van de nieuwe man

[Licentiate thesis]. Ghent University: Ghent.


2. Attitudes and image: a definition

People are constantly evaluating their environment and through their own observations, they

form an opinion on a multitude of subjects. Hence, it is difficult to imagine someone who is

completely neutral about everything and everyone he or she encounters. This personal

evaluation is called an attitude towards something or someone.

According to an exact definition, an attitude is a general predisposition of an individual, an

object, a product, an organization, an advertisement, etc. Furthermore, an attitude consists of

three major components: a cognitive, an emotional and a behavioral component. They

respectively represent one’s thoughts and beliefs about the subject, how the object, person,

issue or event makes one feel and how the attitude influences one’s behavior. All three

aspects correlate. Consumers strive for a perfect harmony between what they feel and what

they think, which is why marketers may concentrate on changing one of the components to

influence attitudes.

Another important concept worth mentioning is the image. While people have attitudes,

objects have a certain image, which implies certain opinions, feelings or behavioral intentions

towards the object, created in an individual’s mind. In marketing, both a brand’s or a

product’s image and the target group’s attitudes towards this brand or product are significant.

A product’s identity is strongly determined by the image and in that manner, the product is

able to distinguish itself from other brands and products.

Returning to attitudes, four different functions can be specified. Firstly, attitudes have a

knowledge function. They summarize a large amount of information and reduce the world’s

complexity in order to allow people to make decisions more quickly. Secondly, other attitudes

express values. They help to communicate one’s characteristics, preferences and interests

to others and to manage or control impressions. Positive attitudes towards a certain product

(for instance: Armani suits) indicate a sophisticated, expensive style. Thirdly, attitudes may

protect one’s ego by enforcing the self-esteem, helping consumers to cope with frustrations

and emotional conflicts. Finally, a fourth category of attitudes has an instrumental function,

which means they help consumers to choose satisfying and avoid dissatisfying products.

Concluding this theoretical explanation, a person has two different evaluations of a single

attitudinal object. An implicit attitude is automatic and uncontrolled, whereas an explicit

attitude is more reasoned and controlled. Each kind of attitude can be measured through

several instruments, some of which are described in 4.3. This paper focuses on the

argument that (stereotypical) attitudes simultaneously exist on both an implicit and an explicit

level.


3. Stereotypes and the ‘new man’

3.1 Changing sex roles: fact or fiction?

In modern society, the female role has changed considerably over the past few years and,

because of the increase in working women, this role slowly equals the male role. Hence,

there is an evolution towards less traditional ideas about gender roles, which might also be

explained by an increase in education level and a growing tendency in the number of

divorces. As for men, there are ongoing changes in the male role pattern (think of the new

man), but these are limited and not very impressive. Men did expand their participation in the

household, only did women expand their participation in professional jobs to a larger extent.

What seems to be important is the way in which both men and women are portrayed. Does

an image eventually leads to a certain change in gender attitudes? If so, it is crucial to

analyze gender representations.

3.1.1. Differences in role presentation

At this point, it is undeniable that there are indeed changes in gender role patterns. With

reference to marketing, it is of critical importance to know how marketers should react to

different role patterns and how they should implement them in their advertising strategies.

Which role presentations do they create to use? In what is next, one of the most common

divisions that are frequently made is briefly illustrated.

Due to the growth in working women, advertisers hereupon developed new images of the

modern woman. One of those is the picture of ‘superwoman’, in which a woman is

represented as someone who knows perfectly how to combine her job and her family with

little outside help. Images of that kind create the impression as though women easily could

meet both their labor as well as their household demands by themselves. Nevertheless, the

female majority would long for some assistance, given their elevated stress level while

searching for a balance between those heavy demands. This is why advertisers developed a

new ‘equal’ representation, displaying loving husbands who lend a hand in the household.

For the existence of this equal gender image in advertising together with the changing male

role pattern in modern society, it is important to test to which degree this representation can

and may be used. This project mainly focuses on potential problems caused by the use of

new male images.


3.1.2. The ‘new man’ in advertisements

In general, the main objective of advertisements is to see that consumers want to be like the

people in the advertisement and also that they consequently want to buy the product. The

way in which men are portrayed in these advertisements thus may be of great impact on how

people think about gender roles, about others and about themselves. In fact, gender

representations are unequal and still, gender stereotyping in advertising is frequently

present.

Only recently, attention was paid to male representations in advertisements. It was

discovered that modern advertising promotes an ideal man, one who is defined by physical

strength, power, dominance and indifference. In order to keep up his strong appearance, this

ideal man needs to restrain his vulnerable and compassionate side. It was already

mentioned that a trend towards an a-stereotypical representation of men is up. However,

there appears to be a fear of emasculating men. The traditional image of a powerful man is

strongly culturally embedded, which may explain the moderate success of changing the male

gender role.

It is probable that stereotypical, traditional men adopt rigid and more complex attitudes

towards the male role pattern, which is why they could be less open to media images that

deviate from the ideal. Nevertheless, male attitudes towards the role pattern can be

influenced by recurring media images of men. Attitudes seem to be dynamic and sensitive to

temporary influences that emphasize more or less traditional male pictures. Still, the specific

impact of these images depend on how traditional men are orientated. In the short term,

modern men are not immune to pictures that reinforce the predominant masculinity standard,

whereas traditional men appear to be less susceptible to media influences as regards male

stereotypes.

The male family role in television advertisements indeed is portrayed differently from the

female role. The major findings are summarized below:

Men, more often than women, are portrayed as being away from home;

Women will promote beauty products more often than men will do;

Women, more often than men, are presented while cooking, ironing and doing the

dishes;

Men are portrayed with children less often than women are;

If they are presented together with children, most of the times their wife is around;

Men really are displayed while playing with the children or reading to them more than

women are;


Men are portrayed with their sons more often than with their daughters;

Men, more often than women are presented in food advertisements.

These conclusions suggest that the male role presentation in advertising did not yet change

dramatically and mostly, an advertisement does not present the image of a committed

husband and father.

3.2 Implications for marketing and advertising

For the modern society underwent a significant change in how people think about role

patterns, it is crucial to realize that consumer behavior has also been modified. Marketing

strategies are no longer targeted at certain groups because of merger patterns in gender

roles. Advertisers might need to fine-tune their marketing strategies to men who, according to

the modern society, tend to equal women with regard to the household. From this, a question

of critical importance for marketers arises: how and to what extent should both men and

women be portrayed in advertising? This project concentrates on how men should be

presented towards traditional role patterns in advertisements.

Does the new man really exist and if so, is it useful to portray him as such? This question

has, given that stereotypes are activated automatically, much to do with both men’s and

women’s unconscious, implicit way of thinking. It is clear that, due to a permanent exposure

to several media, many people will explicitly create a positive attitude towards these

changing gender role patterns and they will only encourage phenomena such as the new

man. But did those images also bring real changes inside people’s brains, in their

subconsciousness? Do they still prefer stereotypical images at an unconscious level or is it

pretense? Of course, these questions are relevant for marketers who try to make an effective

change in advertising.


4. Research design

4.1 Project aims and objectives

For this project, attitudes towards stereotyping and the modern man in advertising for a low

involvement product, namely soft drinks, are measured.2 The research question can be

subdivided in two separate questions. The first one deals with the attitudes towards the

stereotypical man: “Which attitudes do people take towards the stereotypical man in

advertising?” The second question, on the contrary, focuses on the attitudes towards the new

man: Which attitudes do people take towards the new man in advertising?”

More specifically, the following hypotheses are tested:

H0: People’s attitudes towards the stereotypical man are not significantly different from their

attitudes towards the new man.

H1: People’s attitudes towards the stereotypical man are significantly different from their


In this research, people’s attitudes towards the traditional role presentations as well as

towards the new man’s representation in advertising are analyzed. Is there an attitudinal

difference between both representations? This important question will be answered in detail

further on.

A second aspect that needs to be examined is the attitudinal difference between both

genders. Gender could be an important variable to take into account, if a certain product

needs to be highly promoted to a specific audience.

This thought puts forward the following testable hypotheses:

H2: Girls’/Woman’s attitudes do not differ significantly from those of boys/men.

H3: Girls’/Woman’s attitudes do differ significantly from those of boys/men.

With an explanation similar to that of gender differences, it is possible that adolescents look

differently at (a-)stereotypical images of men than adults do. In fact, a great change in

gender role presentations has taken place among the generations.

2 W. Declercq’s original reasearch only focused on testing adolescents’ attitudes . Furthermore, his aim was to look for gender differences among these adolescents. Here is where my creative input comes in, for I carried out a survey among both adolescents and adults. Hence, not only could I test for

gender differences, but also for age differences.


Therefore, the next hypotheses are not superfluous:

H4: Adolescents’ attitudes do not differ significantly from those of adults.

H5: Adolescents’ attitudes do differ significantly from those of adults.

4.2 Survey method

To test all hypotheses, I conducted an online survey containing typical attitudinal

measurement scales. The questionnaire was set up in English as well as in Dutch. As I

carried it out for the Academic English course, it was obvious that all instructions had to

appear in English. However, all respondents were native Dutch speakers. Therefore, all

information on the survey was bilingual, whereas the response categories were worked out in

Dutch to avoid difficulties on the respondents’ part. The participants were asked to complete

a questionnaire on soft drink advertisements, which would approximately take 10-15 minutes

of their time. Participation was completely on a voluntary basis and no rewards were

provided. 42 respondents took part in this survey, of which 8 were men and 34 were women.

Eventually, 28 of all participants completed the survey full scale, yet 5 of them were men and

23 of them were women. Due to reliability causes, only those who finished the questionnaire

until the end are considered.

All data are analyzed with the 21st version of SPSS Statistics software package. For every

question, methods of descriptive statistics are used. Means and standard deviations are

calculated. Independent T-tests are applied to test the hypotheses. A significance level of 95

per cent is assumed here, which implies that conclusions from this report can be generalized

to the Belgian population in 95 out of 100 cases. Furthermore, Cronbach’s Alpha calculated

the significance levels and correlations between the different types of measurement.

4.3 Measurement tools

It is general knowledge that people do not always say what they think and perhaps, they do

not always know what they are thinking. A person may not want to express his or her

personal attitudes in public and even more, our attitudes are not always accessible for our

own conscious feelings and thoughts. Especially for marketers, it could be very important to

discover what people really think instead of what they think they are saying or thinking. Three

well-known explicit tools (Aad, Ab, GAI) were used to test attitudes towards stereotypes for

this project. In what is next, the instruments are given some further information. First, they

are defined and afterwards, their specific application for this project is briefly explained.


The first measuring instrument is the Attitudes towards the advertisement (Aad). This

attitude is a predisposition to respond in a favorable or unfavorable manner to a particular

advertising stimulus. The respondent’s affective reactions to the advertisement are

measured. These reactions depend partly on their cognitions (perceptions) of the

advertisement. For this project, I created two advertisements that were showed to the

respondents. The first one is the stereotypical advertisement, portraying a man working in

blue overalls. The second advertisement presents a ‘new man’, a father holding his baby

while ironing (see below). The respondents had to evaluate both advertisements through

rating 14 words on a 10 point scale. The higher they rated the item, the more they believed it

applied to the advertisement.

The following words needed to be evaluated:

Nice

Believable

Attractive

Matching the product

Ridiculous

Fake

Just like me

Stereotypical

Modern

Convincing

Adorable

An actual representation of men

Funny

Original

Advertisement 1 – traditional (stereotypical) man

Advertisement 2 – modern (a-stereotypical) man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising


Secondly, the Attitudes towards the brand model (Ab) was used to examine the

respondents' affective reactions towards the advertised brand and, perhaps, the desirable

attitude towards purchasing a product promoted by that brand. Ab is influenced by Aad. It is

suggested that positive Aad significantly increases both the accessibility and the brand’s

perceived appropriateness. In this project, two fictitious brand names (Instacool and

Instafresh) were used.

Each respondent had to evaluate both brands based on six bipolar adjectives:

Good – bad

Agreeable – disagreeable

Unattractive – attractive

Worthless – worthy

Unsatisfying – satisfying

Nice – awful

The first (stereotypical) advertisement was linked to ‘Instafresh’, whereas the second (a-

stereotypical) advertisement was linked to ‘Instacool’.

The third and last explicit measuring instrument that was used, is the General Attitude

Inventory (GAI). This is a structured statement list which exposes many aspects of people’s

feelings and thoughts with regard to gender and gender role presentations. This project

focuses on the modern man’s role patterns, so the questionnaire contained statements about

traditional stereotypes and family role patterns. The respondents were asked to read them

carefully and to create an opinion on the statements, reporting on a 7 point scale to what

extent they agreed/disagreed on each of them. The scale was used in order to deduct a

general ‘attitudinal number’ and to compare the respondents’ attitudes towards gender

stereotyping.


5. Results

5.1.1. Attitudes towards the advertisement (Aad)

First, the means and standard deviations per advertisements are analyzed and we look for

general significant differences in attitudes towards (a-)stereotypical advertisements. In other

words, H0 and H1 are tested. Afterwards, the attitudes towards the advertisements are split

up according to both gender and age, and hypotheses H2, H3, H4 and H5 are examined.

The items ‘stereotypical’ and ‘an actual presentation of men’ are not considered. They simply

acted as control variables.

Advertisement 1

TRADITIONAL MAN

Advertisement 2

MODERN MAN

Mean Std. Deviation Mean Std. Deviation

Nice 3.50 1.836 5.96 1.644

Believable 2.82 1.307 4.21 1.771

Attractive 3.04 2.009 5.89 1.931

Matching the product 2.79 1.595 4.11 2.200

Ridiculous 4.75 2.459 3.43 1.874

Fake 4.96 2.457 4.14 2.256

Just like me 1.64 1.096 3.46 2.301

Modern 4.46 2.285 6.57 1.731

Convincing 2.75 1.878 4.96 2.186

Adorable 1.96 1.644 6.86 2.172

Funny 2.93 1.864 4.93 2.801

Original 3.79 2.425 6.00 2.494

We already notice considerable differences here. For instance, on average, attitudes towards

the new man advertisement tend to be more favorable than those towards that of the

traditional man, except for the items ‘ridiculous’ and ‘fake’. This last finding only reconfirms

the preference for the modern man. Important to these assumptions is whether the

differences appear to be significant, in other words, whether H0 (suggesting equality) may be

rejected or not. None of the items, ‘stereotypical’ and ‘an actual representation of men’

dropped from consideration, show a fundamental difference for both advertisements. On the

whole, we can draw the conclusion that H0 is not applicable, for none of the items. Hence,

we accept H1 and H0 is rejected. The following statements on people’s attitudes towards

stereotyping are valid:

Table 1 – Attitudes towards the advertisements: means and standard deviations


People’s explicitly think of modern man advertisements as being…:

Nicer

More attractive

More matching the product

Less ridiculous

More real

Just like them

More credible

More convincing

More adorable

Funnier

More original

…than they do about stereotypical man advertisements.

If we compare the means according to gender as well as age, this summary is provided:

Advertisement 1

TRADITIONAL MAN

Advertisement 2

MODERN MAN

♂ ♀ ♂ ♀

18-24 24+ 18-24 24+ 18-24 24+ 18-24 24+

Nice 2.67 1.00 3.67 3.88 7.00 8.00 5.80 5.63

Believable 2.67 2.00 2.67 3.13 6.00 8.00 3.67 4.25

Attractive 2.67 2.00 2.80 3.50 7.67 8.00 5.53 5.50

Matching the product 2.33 2.00 2.73 3.38 6.33 8.00 3.40 4.38

Ridiculous 6.00 8.00 4.60 4.38 3.00 1.00 3.73 3.50

Fake 5.33 8.00 5.13 4.50 4.00 9.00 4.27 3.50

Just like me 3.00 1.00 1.47 1.50 5.67 5.00 2.73 3.75

Modern 5.00 2.00 4.60 4.38 8.33 8.00 6.67 5.63

Convincing 3.00 1.00 3.07 2.38 6.67 9.00 4.87 4.00

Adorable 2.67 1.00 1.93 2.00 6.67 9.00 7.00 6.25

Funny 3.67 3.00 3.33 2.13 6.33 1.00 4.87 5.25

Original 5.67 1.00 4.13 3.13 7.67 9.00 6.33 4.38

In general, some main findings clearly emerge from the data. As for age, male adolescents

have taken a more positive attitude towards the traditional man than male adults have, and

conversely, male adults have adopted a more positive attitude towards the modern man than

male adolescents have. These results are quite striking. On the contrary, no great

differences between female respondents were found, neither between both advertisements

nor based on age. As for gender, women explicitly have more favorable attitudes towards the

traditional man, whereas men created more positive attitudes towards the new man.

Looking for differences based on the advertisements, the following conclusions for

advertisement 1 can be drawn :

Table 2 – Attitudes towards the advertisements according to gender and age: means


Men think of this advertisement as more ridiculous and fake, but yet also funnier and

more adorable than women do;

Men relate to this advertisement rather than women do.

This second finding could possibly reconfirm the stereotypical image of strong and powerful

men, if it was not for a lack of significance concerning these differences. Again, none of the

items show significant gender or age differences.

For advertisement 2, these findings emerge from the data:

Men think of this advertisement as matching the product more than women do;

Men think of this advertisement as more original than women do;

Men relate to this advertisement rather than women do.

Only, once again none of the items seem to show significant differences. For both the

stereotypical as the a-stereotypical image, there appears to be no explicit attitudinal

difference between men and women as well as adolescents and adults. This means that H2

and H4 are accepted, since there appear to be similar attitudes for all items. With regard to

Aad, no significant attitudinal gender or age differences could be determined.

5.1.2. Attitudes towards the brand (Ab)

Once more, the general findings per brand are analyzed. Then the results are examined

separately for gender and age.

INSTAFRESH (~ advertisement 1) INSTACOOL (~ advertisement 2)

Mean Std. Deviation Mean Std. Deviation

Good – bad 3.43 1.597 4.61 1.595

Agreeable – disagreeable 3.04 1.290 4.54 1.232

Unattractive – attractive 4.79 1.572 2.96 1.401

Worthless – worthy 4.36 1.193 3.00 1.186

Unsatisfying – satisfying 1.00 1.491 3.00 1.247

Nice – awful 3.50 1.795 4.75 1.206

Once more, clear differences concerning people’s explicit attitudes towards the brand are

visible. For all items, significant differences were found. In general, we conclude that people

explicitly tend to prefer ‘Instacool’, linked to the stereotypical man, rather than the modern

man brand ‘Instafresh’. H0 needs to be rejected and H1 is accepted, for people’s explicit

attitudes towards the stereotypical do differ significantly from those towards the modern man.

Table 3 – Attitudes towards the brand: means and standard deviations


When we separate the results according to gender and age, the main findings are more

specific than the major findings discussed above. To start with, there were no significant age

differences. However, as for gender, the following conclusions are significant:

Men have adopted negative attitudes towards ‘Instafresh’ (the stereotypical brand)

and positive ones towards ‘Instacool’ (the modern brand);

Women think of ‘Instafresh’ as attractive, worthy and satisfying more than men do.

This finding might suggest that in a woman’s opinion, the traditional strong man still is

desirable. Nevertheless, they also clearly have more positive attitudes towards the

new man brand (Instacool) than towards Instafresh. It seems that the modern man

has become a familiar subject.

5.1.3. General Attitude Inventory (GAI)

For the majority of the statements, the differences were significant. Without expanding

greatly on the specific conclusions in detail, these are the main results of GAI:

With regard to stereotypes:

Men see themselves as more adventurous and independent than women are, while

women see men as more competitive, selfish, arrogant and self-assured than they

are themselves;

Women also see themselves as more gullible and dedicated to others.

With regard to family gender roles:

Men have more positive attitudes towards working women and towards staying at

home themselves, although these results are not significant;

However, men do believe that a woman’s major responsibility is taking care of her

family, whereas they see themselves as the main family provider;

Women’s answers regarding themselves working outside the house might be

cautious. Anyway, they indicate not wanting to sacrifice their career in order to be a

stay-at-home wife;

Men and women more or less agree on them taking equal responsibility in raising the

children.

Gender differences were not significant. However, there is a slight tendency towards men

accepting the traditional role patterns to a greater extent than women do.


It might be interesting to mention that the results from the previous research (specified on p.

4) show another trend. Comparing both findings, men as well as women tended to be more

traditional than they do now. For instance, they found that:

Men would not respect other stay-at-home men;

According to men, women were only allowed to be working outside the house if their

job would in no way interfere with their family responsibilities;

Men think of women as being more gullible and weak than they are.

Importantly, these results date from 2003. We might suggest that, more than ever, the

modern society has accepted new gender role patterns nowadays. If this tendency proceeds,

future research might come across other impressive results.

A personal speculation of social-psychological kind concerns the age difference. Declercq’s

questionnaire was conducted among adolescents. His results presented a preference for the

traditional man in advertising. Given the fact that adolescents adopted a more favorable

attitude towards the traditional man for this project as well, we might rather look at inter-

generational effects than at intra-generational effects. Perhaps views on stereotypes and

gender role patterns do not depend on a certain period of time, but on differences between

age groups. For example, of adolescents can be thought that they lack in life experience.

Mostly, they have only had few responsibilities or long-term relationships, which is why they

may have divergent views on gender roles. However, this assumption can be contested for it

goes against the social learning theory and recent media effects.

5.1.4. Reliability tests

To evaluate the reliability of explicit measurement tools, Cronbach’s coefficient Alpha is

used. This number, which is always between 0 and 1, represents the an instrument’s internal

consistency. A lower rate indicates a poor correlation between the items. An extremely high

rate (close to 1) is not good either. In general, Alpha is expected to be 0.70 or higher.

However, a smaller sample yields less reliable data, which is why an Alpha of 0.60 is set as a

minimum level. The results, split up according to gender, can be found below.

MEN WOMEN

Advertisement 1 – stereotypical 0.637 0.824

Advertisement 2 – a-stereotypical 0.823 0.835

Table 4 – Aad: Cronbach’s coefficient Alpha


In conclusion, for each of the three explicit measuring instruments, Cronbach’s coefficient

Alpha is sufficiently high. Therefore, a high internal consistency-reliability is suggested.

MEN WOMEN

Advertisement 1 – stereotypical 0.938 0.8445

Advertisement 2 – a-stereotypical 0.653 0.891

MEN WOMEN

Statements 1-10 – traditional stereotypes 0.653 0.660

Statements 11-20 – family role patterns 0.714 0.703

Table 5 – Ab: Cronbach’s coefficient Alpha

Table 6 – GAI: Cronbach’s coefficient Alpha


6. Conclusion

The gender role has changed considerably over the past few years, which has

consequences for our attitudes and our behavior. The modern society claims to have

dropped the ‘old’ stereotypes and is really enthusiastic about the ‘new’ man. This project

focused on the effects of male role presentations in advertising and their impact on the

consumer’s attitudes. More specifically, we examined whether the new man image really

exists among consumers and whether it is effective to use it as such in advertising. Recently,

the male role in advertising changed into a less traditional representation, but still the old

stereotypes seem not to be forgotten. However, there is a tendency towards a more positive

male stereotype in advertising. Did attitudes towards stereotypes and role presentations

transform?

For this project, attitudes towards stereotyping and the modern man in advertising for a low

involvement product, namely soft drinks, were measured. The first research question was:

“Which attitudes do people take towards the stereotypical man in advertising?” The second

question, on the contrary, focuses on the attitudes towards the new man: Which attitudes do

people take towards the new man in advertising?”

The following hypotheses were tested:

H0: People’s attitudes towards the stereotypical man is not significantly different from their


H1: People’s attitudes towards the stereotypical man are significantly different from their


H2: Girls’/Woman’s attitudes do not differ significantly from those of boys/men.

H3: Girls’/Woman’s attitudes do differ significantly from those of boys/men.

H4: Adolescents’ attitudes do not differ significantly from those of adults.

H5: Adolescents’ attitudes do differ significantly from those of adults.

Three well-known explicit tools (Aad, Ab, GAI) were used to test attitudes towards

stereotypes. For Aad, on average, attitudes towards the new man advertisement tended to

be more favorable than those towards that of the traditional man. Hence, we accepted H1

stating that there are differences in people’s attitudes towards the stereotypical and the

modern man. As for age, male adolescents have taken a more positive attitude towards the


traditional man than male adults have, and conversely, male adults have adopted a more

positive attitude towards the modern man than male adolescents have. However, for both the

stereotypical as the a-stereotypical image, there appears to be no explicit attitudinal

difference between men and women as well as adolescents and adults. This means that H2

and H4 are accepted.

For Ab, for all items, significant differences were found. In general, we conclude that people

explicitly tend to prefer ‘Instacool’, linked to the stereotypical man, rather than the modern

man brand ‘Instafresh’. H0 needs to be rejected and H1 is accepted, for people’s explicit

attitudes towards the stereotypical do differ significantly from those towards the modern man.

This time, there were significant gender differences. For GAI, the differences between the

statements were significant too and again, people tend explicitly to report more positive

attitudes towards the modern man.

These results may be of importance to marketers. Nevertheless, it should be said that they

do not cover a large audience, which implies that they cannot be generalized to the entire

population. It would be interesting to conduct more research and to carry out a study of

women’s representation in advertising. Is it useful to image businesswomen, just like the new

man, or is it better to remain the picture of stay-at-home wives?

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