A Motivational Theory of Gendered Consumption

Research output: Types of ThesisDoctoral thesis

Abstract

The worldwide decline in people’s adherence to traditional gender norms in the past forty years (Inglehart 2018) has led to two new phenomena in the consumer behavior domain: the emergence of androgynous choices on the market and flexible preferences for symbolically gendered choices. My dissertation bridges two fundamental domains of consumer research, agency/communion desires, and symbolically gendered choices, to offer a motivational theory of gendered consumption that explains these two phenomena. Essay 1 introduces the concept of androgynous choice to examine whether and why consumers prefer androgynous over polarized masculine and feminine choices. It is proposed that consumers prefer androgynous over polarized choices to simultaneously pursue their agentic and communal motives. This work further demonstrates that beliefs in traditional gender norms and toxic masculine and feminine identities mitigate consumers’ preferences for androgyny and enhance preferences for polarized choices. Essay 2 proposes that agentic and communal motives, beyond consumers’ genders, shape consumers’ desires for masculine and feminine choices. It is suggested that consumers’ perceptions that acquiring masculine and feminine products would provide them with senses of agency and communion, underlie these preferences.
Original languageAmerican English
QualificationDoctor of Philosophy
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Blair Kidwell, Nancy Spears, Advisor, External person
StatePublished - 2019

EGS Disciplines

  • Marketing
  • Gender and Sexuality

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'A Motivational Theory of Gendered Consumption'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this