Is the Selectivity Hypothesis Still Relevant? A Review of Gendered Persuasion and Processing of Advertising Messages

These descriptions of the focus (self vs. other) and the way that men and women process information sound like the predictions made from the selectivity hypothesis, proposed and tested by Meyers-Levy (1988) more than 20 years ago. The selectivity hypothesis is the most influential theoretical framework related to persuasion and gender (Kempf, Laczniak, & Smith, 2006). It suggests that gender may be an important variable for understanding how men and women respond to communication efforts based on their gender roles (culturally derived behaviors and activities associated with masculinity or femininity that individuals choose to adopt; Palan, 2001).