Advertising with sexualized female models is a commonly used technique in the advertisement industry. While “sex sells” is often successful in eliciting positive responses from male consumers, it often elicits negative responses from female consumers. On the one hand, female consumers might perceive sexualization as lacking in value (i.e., as a cheap display of sexuality lacking any kind of commitment). On the other hand, they might perceive sexualization as lacking in agency (i.e., as the model being displayed as an object rather than a subject). In two studies we investigate whether it is the lack of value or the lack of agency in sexualization that leads to more negative evaluations by young female perceivers. We manipulated the slogan in a sexualized advertisement so that it either adds value to sex (but does not add agency to the model) or so that it adds agency to the model (but does not add value to sex). Furthermore, we investigate the role of relatedness between the consumer and model with two advanced methodological approaches manipulating the facial characteristics of the model in the advertisement. In Study 1, we manipulated relatedness via perceived familiarity of the model’s face, whereas in Study 2, we manipulated relatedness via actual similarity between the perceivers’ and the model’s face in the advertisement. Results indicate that the lack of agency rather than the lack of value leads to negative evaluations by female consumers. This effect was pronounced if the advertisement model was relatable to the consumers.
Depicting sexy images is a commonly used technique to sell products to potential consumers. A vast majority of these adverts contain images of attractive women in seductive poses (
Although many advertisements depicting seductive and sexy female models are meant to appeal to women, they often achieve the contrary: They are evaluated negatively (
Sexual Economics Theory (SET;
By applying the assumptions of SET to the domain of sexualized advertisements it has been argued that it might be the lack of value attached to sex that leads to negative evaluations by women and that the evaluations become more positive when sex is given in exchange for another valuable resource (
To illustrate, in one study, sexualized ads were either linked to a product (a watch) with a high price tag (i.e., expensive, $1,250) or with a low price tag (i.e., cheap; $10;
As discussed, SET defines sex as a resource that women have and men want to possess. By keeping the “price” for the resource high, women are able to exert a certain power and control over men and to gain the security of being provided for (
However, in line with the movement towards more equality and independence for women,
This shift from objectification to subjectification in media is assumed to stem from feminist critiques against the objectification of female models (
How do the concerns about lack of value and lack of agency relate to one another? On the one hand, it has been shown that women react more positively toward sexualization when sex is depicted as part of an exchange for resources, specifically resources that a man provides for a woman (
It has always been a major concern of the advertising industry to establish a sense of relatedness between the targeted audience and the advertising model (
In two studies we aim to disentangle two potential sources of negative evaluations of sexualized advertisement by female perceivers: Perceived lack of value regarding sex in the advertisement and perceived lack of agency of the model in the advertisement. We created an advertising context in which a high amount of agency would imply a reduced value of sex, whereas a low amount of agency would imply an enhanced value of sex. We created two versions of the same advertisement with differing slogans. One implied that the model’s sexualization is her own free choice and she does not get something in return (high agency, low value), whereas the other implied that the purpose of the sexualization is that the model will get an expensive gift from a man in return (low agency, high value).
As a second aim of this paper, we investigate the role of perceived relatedness between the model and female perceivers. In order to manipulate relatedness, we used two different methods that subtly alter the facial characteristics of the model in the advertisement in order to appear more or less related to the perceivers. In Study 1, we manipulated relatedness on the group level by enhancing and reducing perceived familiarity of the model’s face using a previously developed familiarity face model. In Study 2, we manipulated relatedness by enhancing and reducing actual similarity between the model and the female perceiver on an individual level by subtly morphing participants’ facial characteristics into the model’s face in the advertisement.
Two opposing sets of hypotheses are formulated. On the one hand, under the assumption that the lack of value is a bigger concern than the lack of agency, the advertisement offering an exchange value should receive more favorable ratings than the advertisement offering agency. On the other hand, under the assumption that the lack of agency is a bigger concern than the lack of value, the advertisement offering agency should receive more favorable ratings than the advertisement offering an exchange value. Under both assumptions, we hypothesize that the effect should be pronounced if the female consumer can relate to the model in terms of familiarity (Study 1) or similarity (Study 2).
Study 1 tested which concern, the lack of agency or the lack of value, was the stronger concern in driving negative evaluations. To do so, we varied the slogan within a sexualized advertisement, so that it either highlighted the model’s agency by stressing that there was no exchange (high agency / low value), or highlighted the exchange value of sex by stressing that the product would be gifted from the man to the woman (low agency / high value). Additionally, we tested whether the difference in evaluation would be more pronounced when the presented model is psychologically related to the participant compared to when she is not. In Study 1 we operationalized relatedness via perceived familiarity of the model’s face.
The online-study used a 2 (slogan: high agency / low value vs. low agency / high value) by 2 (relatedness: familiar vs. non-familiar) between-subjects design. An apriori power analysis using G*Power ( As we predicted an ordinal interaction, we followed recommendations by
We used a real advertisement retrieved from the Internet. The advertisement was pretested in terms of the degree of sexualization in other studies in our lab. We added the slogan in the upper left part and a perfume bottle in the lower left part. The image was black and white. The model in the ad was lying naked on a bed, with some parts of the body covered with a white blanket. The model’s line of sight was directed towards the camera.
To highlight either high agency (but low value) or low agency (but high value), respectively, we designed two different slogans – “My present for me” (German version: “Mein Geschenk für mich”) and “His present for me” (German version: “Sein Geschenk für mich”). For ease of readability we refer to the former simply as a “high agency slogan” and to the latter as a “low agency slogan”. By using the pronoun “my” in the high agency slogan we indicated that the model in the advertisement is represented as an agentic subject; she is the acting, self-determinant subject. At the same time the slogan indicates that she has no need for any exchange value; she is buying the product as a present for herself (high agency, low value). In contrast, by using the pronoun “his” in the low agency slogan we indicated that there is an exchange for the sexualization of the female model in the advertisement. She will get a present from a man to represent his commitment to her. At the same time the slogan indicates that she is not acting in an agentic, self-determined way.
The perceived relatedness between the observer and the model in the advertisement was operationalized via familiarity of the model’s face. We used a successfully validated fully data-driven face modeling approach to extract the facial characteristics that individuals spontaneously associate with familiar faces to systematically manipulate the perceived familiarity of the model (
To assess the overall attitude towards the advertisement we took two items commonly used in sexualized advertisement research (e.g.,
We measured purchase intention with the single item “
To test the two different versions of the slogan, five agency related items were used (
The German version (
After giving their informed consent, participants filled out the PANAS. Then participants were told that they would evaluate an advertisement, which would be shown for ten seconds. They were either presented with the familiar model and the high agency slogan, the familiar model and the low agency slogan, the non-familiar model and the high agency slogan, or the non-familiar model and the low agency slogan. Subsequently, they completed the overall attitude towards the ad scale, followed by the cognitive and affective attitude towards the ad scales. Then, they answered the purchase intention question. Next, they answered the two manipulation check items (i.e., relatedness and slogan). Afterwards, participants indicated whether they recognized the portrayed model and filled out the PANAS for the second time. Next, participants answered the twelve items from the ASI. Finally, participants answered some demographic questions (i.e., age, gender, and education), indicated how carefully they had read the instructions and received the opportunity to add comments. They were thanked and directed to the lottery.
An analysis of variance for independent samples shows the expected effect for the manipulation of the slogan on the agency scale. The high agency slogan “My present for me” was rated as more agentic (
As intended, the model in the advertisement was perceived as more related to the participant when she was manipulated to look familiar (
To determine whether the lack of value or the lack of agency led to a worse evaluation of the ad, we submitted the overall attitude towards the ad scale ( An additional mediation model shows that there is a significant condition effect from the slogan on the attitude towards the ad,
Dependent variable | Relatedness |
|
---|---|---|
Non-familiar |
Familiar |
|
Overall attitude towards the ad | ||
High agency slogan | 4.05 (1.60) | 4.41 (1.43) |
Low agency slogan | 3.79 (1.47) | 3.53 (1.48) |
Purchase intention | ||
High agency slogan | 3.28 (1.79) | 3.45 (1.76) |
Low agency slogan | 2.91 (1.78) | 2.57 (1.54) |
In order to test whether the attitudinal difference is more pronounced when the presented model is psychologically related to the participant (i.e., looks familiar) compared to when she is not (i.e., looks non-familiar), we followed the recommendations by
Running the same linear trend analysis with purchase intention as a dependent variable also resulted in a significant linear trend. The familiar model with the low agency slogan led to the lowest purchase intention, followed by the non-familiar model with the low agency slogan, the non-familiar model with the high agency slogan and highest purchase intention for the familiar model with the high agency slogan,
In order to investigate the role of participants’ sexism, in a first step we calculated a mean benevolent (Cronbach’s α = .85) and a mean hostile (Cronbach’s α = .82) score for each participant. The two scales moderately correlate with each other (
Both the affective and the cognitive rating scale as well as participants’ mood were not affected by the different conditions (see Supplemental Materials).
Participants’ overall ratings towards the ad as well as their purchase intention were higher when the slogan was “My present for me” compared to when the slogan was “His present for me”. The former slogan implicates that the model is an agentic, self-determinant subject. It seems to be more important that the model in the sexualized advertisement is acting in a self-determinant, independent way, rather than getting something in return for sex. Thus, participants acted more in line with predictions derived from the empowerment literature than with predictions derived from SET. This was especially pronounced when the model was manipulated to look familiar.
An open question remains as to whether it was high agency (but low value) that led to more favorable ratings or whether it was low agency (but high value) that led to less favorable ratings. This question will be addressed in Study 2. Moreover, as can be seen in the supplemental material, the manipulation of familiarity also led to perceived differences in the ascribed dominance of the model (i.e., more perceived familiarity was associated with lower perceived dominance; see supplemental material). The personality trait dominance can be seen as a part of agency (
In Study 2 we aimed to replicate the findings of Study 1 but also included a baseline condition, in order to understand what drives the effect. Moreover, we aimed to use another technique to establish relatedness between the model and participant, namely by enhancing actual similarity between the model in the advertisement and the female participants. Thus, in Study 2, we morphed a specific amount of participants’ facial characteristics into the model’s face. Morphing might be a more direct way of bringing the model closer to the self by literally infusing the self into the model. Thus, individual-level differences of participants’ own faces are taken into account. Moreover, relatedness and dominance are deconfounded. To the best of our knowledge, this technique has not yet been used in the domain of sexualized advertisements and might therefore lead to interesting insights. Since this technique was used for the first time in this context, we also asked participants to rate the similarity, familiarity and closeness between the model and themselves to have a second measure of (perceived) relatedness.
The study used a 3 (slogan: high agency vs. low agency vs. none) by 2 (relatedness: self-morph vs. other-morph) within-subjects design. The study was assessed as a computer study in the laboratory. An apriori power analysis using G*Power (
The slogans were identical to those used in Study 1: “My present for me” (high agency) and “His present for me” (low agency). Furthermore, we added a baseline condition where no slogan was presented (no slogan).
The level of relatedness was manipulated by varying actual facial similarity between the model and participant. To enhance objective similarity between the model and participant, we separately morphed each participant’s face by 35% into the model’s face (i.e., self-morphs). For the dissimilar version we morphed another participant’s face by 35% into the model in the advertisement (i.e., other-morphs). The reason for morphing another person to create the dissimilar version (and not use the non-morphed model) is to deconfound the degree of image manipulation and similarity. Two example images created with this technique are shown in
The same two items as in Study 1 were used to assess the overall attitude towards the advertisement (e.g.,
Purchase intention was measured with the single item “
To test the two different versions of the slogan, the same five agency related items were used as in Study 1 (Cronbach’s α = .93). Perceived relatedness towards the model in the advertisement was assessed on the same items as in Study 1 (Cronbach’s α = .77).
The same twelve items of the German version (
The study was held in three different sessions. In the first session participants’ photographs were taken. The second session consisted of the main task and in the third session participants’ demographics and manipulation checks regarding the face manipulation were collected.
We took portrait photos of participants bearing a neutral expression and looking straight at the camera (Canon EOS 70D). Participants were instructed to put on a black T-shirt and to tie their hair back.
The second session was scheduled approximately two weeks after the first session in our lab. Within those two weeks the stimulus material for the second session was prepared.
Participants were asked to imagine helping an advertising company to evaluate a new advertising campaign. For that reason, they would have to evaluate six different versions of the same advertisement. They were told that there would be some variations of the slogan and the visual appearance of the ad. After reading this instruction they were presented with the six different versions of the advertisement (i.e., high agency self-morph, high agency other-morph, low agency self-morph, low agency other-morph, no slogan self-morph, no slogan other-morph; the order was rotated between participants). They had to indicate their overall attitude towards all six versions of the ad and their purchase intention.
Next, participants rated the attractiveness of the self-morph and the other-morph, answered the same manipulation check for the slogan as in Study 1, and filled out the ambivalent sexism inventory. Finally, participants answered a demographic questionnaire (i.e., age, gender, and education), indicated how carefully they had read the instructions and received the opportunity to add comments. They were thanked and the appointment for the final session was scheduled.
After approximately one week, participants returned to our lab to complete the third, and thus final, session of the whole study package. At the end of this session, which consisted of three independent studies, participants answered a closing questionnaire. Again, we showed participants the advertisement with the similar (i.e., self-morph) and the dissimilar (i.e., other-morph) version of the model. Participants had to indicate to what degree they felt related towards these two versions of the model on the same relatedness scale as had been used in Study 1. At the end of this session participants were thanked again for their participation and were compensated.
To check whether the manipulation of the slogan resulted in the assumed effect, we ran a
Relatedness ratings from the third session (i.e.,
To test whether it is the high agency / low value slogan that leads to a more positive attitude towards the ad and higher purchase intention or the low agency / high value slogan that leads to a more negative attitude towards the ad and lower purchase intention, we ran two separate 3 (slogan: high agency vs. low agency vs. no slogan) by 2 (relatedness: self-morph vs. other-morph) repeated measure ANOVAs with attitude towards the ad and purchase intention as the dependent variables.
Advertisements with the high agency slogan received more favorable ratings (
Moreover, advertisements with the high agency slogan led to higher purchase intentions (
Planned contrast analyses revealed that the advertisements with the high agency slogan received better ratings and higher purchase intentions than the advertisements with no slogan,
Since the manipulation of similarity had been too weak, we used the ratings of the perceived relatedness scale between the model and participant (i.e.,
To investigate the relationship between participants’ self-reported sexism and their overall ratings towards the ad, we first calculated a mean score for the benevolent (Cronbach’s α = .75) and the hostile (Cronbach’s α = .84) sexism subscales. The two subscales correlated weakly with each other (
Dependent variable | High agency slogan | Low agency slogan | No slogan |
---|---|---|---|
Attitude towards the ad | |||
Benevolent sexism | |||
Hostile sexism | |||
Purchase intention | |||
Benevolent sexism | |||
Hostile sexism |
Self-reported sexism was associated with attitude towards the ad and with purchase intention only if the ads contained the low agency slogan “His present for me”. The higher the benevolent sexism scores, the better the ratings of the sexualized advertisement and the higher the hostile sexism scores, the higher the purchase intention. For the sexualized advertisements with no slogan and the slogan with high agency, sexism did not predict the overall attitude towards the advertisements.
The first aim of Study 2 was to replicate the effect of the slogan observed in Study 1. In line with Study 1, results indicate that presenting a high agency (but low value) slogan in sexualized advertisements leads to more favorable ratings than presenting a low agency (but high value) slogan. The second aim was to establish whether this effect is driven by more positive ratings for the advertisement with a high agency slogan or by more negative ratings for the advertisement with a low agency slogan. Through the addition of the baseline condition where no slogan was present we were able to establish that the effect was driven both by a more favorable evaluation of the advertisement when a high agency slogan was used compared to no slogan, as well as a less favorable evaluation of the advertisement when a low agency slogan was used compared to no slogan.
Our third aim was to test the role of relatedness between the model and consumer by objectively moving the image of the model in the advertisement closer to the self. Morphing the face of the participant into the face of the advertising model allowed us to prevent confounds with other constructs like dominance. However, morphing images of the participants’ faces into the model’s face did not significantly affect the perceived relatedness to the model, rendering it an unsuitable measure. One reason as to why the manipulation check indicated no effect might be the amount of facial information (i.e., 35%) that we morphed into the model’s face in the advertisement. We aimed to create a sense of relatedness without the participants actively recognizing themselves in the model. Hence it might be that the manipulation was too subtle and we therefore could not find a significant effect. A further explanation for why this relatedness manipulation might show no effect on the manipulation check is that being exposed to a sexualized model that shares facial characteristics with oneself might elicit negative reactions and the need to distance oneself from the image, at least in some participants.
Because we had no experience with how participants would react towards sexualized advertisements with models who objectively resembled them, we collected an additional measure of perceived relatedness at the end of the study. When taking the perceived relatedness into account, effects are in line with the findings from Study 1. The more related to themselves participants perceived the model to be, the more consequential the message of the slogan was. Being presented with a high agency slogan led to the most positive ratings towards the ad when the model was perceived to be related to themselves. The preference for the ad with a high agency slogan compared to a low agency slogan is enhanced for ads with similar-looking models.
Advertisements with sexualized female models face at least two potential sources for negative evaluations by women. The advertisement might be considered as “cheap” (because sex has little value) or as “objectifying” (because the model has little agency), both of which might be reasons to evaluate the advertisement negatively. In two studies we found consistent evidence for the assumption that the former matters more than the latter. The sexualized ad received more favorable ratings when a high agency (but low value) slogan was present compared to when a low agency (but high value) slogan was present. Again, consistent across the two studies, perceived relatedness enhanced this effect: From all advertisements the version in which high agency (but low value) was highlighted received the least negative evaluations, whereas the version in which low agency (but high value) was highlighted when the model seemed relatable.
Our results, especially the results of Study 2, are seemingly at odds with previous research on SET (
An interesting question arising from this difference in findings is the role of social norms. By addressing sexually explicit advertisements as unethical and manipulative, both male and female consumers typically report rather negative attitudes towards these type of advertisements (
Because ambivalent sexism is more pronounced in cultures with less gender equality, an interesting idea for future research might be to investigate the question of how differing degrees of gender equality in differing societies might affect the reaction to sexualization in advertisements that stress women’s agency vs. the exchange value of sexualization. One might argue that in societies where gender equality is lower, advertisements stressing exchange value would be rated more positively than advertisements stressing empowerment.
Both studies highlighted the importance of relatedness between the model in the advertisement and the perceiver. The low agency slogan led to worse ratings of the advertisement when the model was manipulated to be familiar in Study 1. In Study 2, however, higher perceived relatedness resulted in better evaluations of the sexualized advertisement in all conditions, but this was most pronounced when the slogan focused on agency. That the low agency (but high value) slogan did not result in more negative evaluations needs to be taken with caution due to the study’s design. Participants were asked to indicate their evaluations for all six different versions of the advertisement and thus made comparisons between the different advertisements.
This effect of relatedness in particular seems to be crucial when dealing with famous models in the advertisement industry. As
In our studies, we manipulated relatedness in two specific ways. In Study 1, we altered the familiarity of the model in the advertisement by applying a previously developed familiarity face model. In Study 2, we altered the similarity between the model and the perceiver by morphing the facial characteristics of the perceiver by a certain degree into the model depicted in the sexualized advertisement. Thus, in both studies, we operationalized relatedness solely through the use of facial characteristics. It would further be interesting to use other possibilities to create a certain degree of relatedness between the perceiver and the model by, for example, manipulating the body shape of the model to be more or less similar either to the female form on an average level or by manipulating it to be more or less similar to each individual perceiver.
In two studies we found converging evidence that female consumers evaluate ads with sexualized female models especially negatively if the model is perceived as lacking agency. This effect was enhanced when the model in the advertisement was either manipulated (Study 1) or perceived to be more relatable to the participant (Study 2). When providing a high agency slogan these negative evaluations were alleviated, especially when the model in the advertisement was perceived to be related to the self.
For this study, two datasets are freely available (see the
The following Supplementary Materials are available (for access see Index of
The authors have no funding to report.
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
The authors have no support to report.