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Studies examining message framing effects on persuasion have produced mixed results. Some studies show positively framed messages, which specify attributes or benefits gained by using a product, to be more persuasive than negatively framed messages, which specify attributes or benefits lost by not using a product. Reverse outcomes have been obtained in other studies. The authors explore a theoretical explanation for such findings by investigating whether differences in the degree to which people engage in detailed message processing account for the mixed results. The findings support the view that positively framed messages may be more persuasive when there is little emphasis on detailed processing, but negatively framed messages may be more persuasive when detailed processing is emphasized.

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Efforts to identify and understand gender differences have a long history that has sparked lively debate and generated much public interest. Although understanding gender differences is pivotal to consumer researchers and marketers, investigations into this issue by such individuals have been few in number, often weak in theory, and rather limited in progress made. This paper strives to reinvigorate such inquiry. We begin by describing four major theories of gender differences (socio-cultural, evolutionary, hormone-brain, and the selectivity hypothesis) and then assess relevant research from 2000 to 2013 in marketing, psychology, and biomedicine. From this, five conclusions emerge: Males are more self-oriented, while females are more other-oriented; females are more cautious responders; females are more responsive to negative data; males process data more selectively and females more comprehensively; and females are more sensitive to differentiating conditions and factors. We conclude by identifying several areas of opportunity for advancing our understanding of gender differences.

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Data from two experiments suggest that the genders differ in how they make judgments. In comparison with men, women appeared to have a lower threshold for elaborating on message cues and thus made greater use of such cues in judging products. These differences were eliminated both when the message cues prompted so little attention that they were below men's and women's thresholds for message elaboration and when they prompted so much attention that both genders’ thresholds were exceeded. The origins and implications of these differences are discussed.

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Mixed findings have emerged in message framing studies, even when such studies employ the same general type of framing, such as goal framing. This article attempts to show that by extending the heuristic-systematic model-based explanation of message framing effects to incorporate conditions that may prompt both systematic and heuristic processing, this theory may accommodate some of the aberrant findings. The research reported shows that by varying a message issue's risky implications and its personal relevance, 2 factors that potentially influence the type of processing people employ, systematic, heuristic, or concurrently both types of processing were evoked and influenced people's judgments, causing alternative patterns of message framing effects to occur. The results offer insight into how each of these types of processing can affect message framing outcomes, and they imply that certain seemingly aberrant findings in the literature can be reconciled with this extended theory.