Effects of Gender Schematic Processing on the Reception of Political Commercials for Men and Women Candidates

The article tests hypotheses from gender schema theory (Bem, 1981) in the context of political television commercials for men and women gubernatorial candidates. Subjects viewed authentic commercials for three pairs of candidates, each pair comprising a man and a woman candidate competing for office. The experimental design varied the tone of the commercials (positive, negative, neutral) in addition to candidate gender. Findings included enhanced recall of ad information from content domains of family and appearance in the case of women as opposed to men candidates, and enhanced recall from the domain of campaign activities in the case of men as opposed to women candidates. Men's attack ads on women elicited greater emotional reaction than women's attacks on men.