The Effects of Gender-Stereotyped Radio Commercials†

  1. Wilhelm Hurtz,
  2. Kevin Durkin*

Article first published online: 31 JUL 2006

DOI: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02595.x

Issue

Journal of Applied Social Psychology

Journal of Applied Social Psychology

Volume 34, Issue 9, pages 1974–1992, September 2004

Additional Information

How to Cite

Hurtz, W. and Durkin, K. (2004), The Effects of Gender-Stereotyped Radio Commercials. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 34: 1974–1992. doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02595.x

Author Information

  1. The University of Western Australia Crawley, Western Australia Australia

* Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kevin Durkin, who is now at Department of Psychology, University of Strathclyde, 40 George Street, Glasgow G1 1QE, United Kingdom. E-mail: kevin.durkin@strath.ac.u.

  • †

    The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticisms of an earlier version of this manuscript.

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 31 JUL 2006
  2. Article first published online: 31 JUL 2006

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It is well established that mass-media content often presents strong traditional gender stereotypes, but relatively little is known of the effects of exposure to such content. This study investigates the impact of gender-stereotyped radio commercials on listeners' self-ratings of masculinity and femininity and on the efficiency with which they performed memory tasks that included gender-stereotyped trait terms. No effect on self-rating was obtained. Clear effects on information processing efficiency were found, with participants exposed to the stereotyped commercials showing superior performance on memory for trait words and on a secondary task. It is concluded that repetitive exposure to gender stereotypes via the media does promote the accessibility of stereotype-related cognitions.

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