The influence of androgynous streamers on consumers’ product preferences

Abstract

Since the rapid development of network technology, the rise of live-streaming shopping platforms has followed. Some streamers influence consumers’ preferences for products through their gender role attributes, thus generating great commercial value. Based on attachment theory and using an experimental approach, this study explored the impact of streamers’ gender roles (single gender/androgyny) on consumers’ preferences through 2 studies. Study 1 shows the androgynous streamer elicits a higher product preference than the single-gender (masculine and feminine) streamer. Study 2 demonstrates the moderating effect of gender stereotypes through 2 experiments to construct clear boundary conditions for the main effect and the results show that regardless of whether the streamer is male or female when individuals have a high gender stereotype, the single-gender streamer leads to a higher product preference than the androgynous streamer. When individuals have a low gender stereotype, the androgynous streamer promotes a higher product preference than the single-gender streamer.

The impact of non-stereotypical gender role endorsement in live broadcasting on consumers’ purchase intention

“…The reason is that the higher the traditional gender ideology, the higher the level of gender schematization of a consumer, the more rigid the impression of gender roles, the more inclined to process the advertisement information through the perspective of gender, and therefore has a higher preference for gender role endorsement ( Wang and Lianrong, 2005 ). Empirical studies on live e-commerce have also found that consumers with higher levels of gender ideology pay more attention to messages that are consistent with gender stereotypes ( Wenting et al, 2022 ).…”

“…With the mutual penetration of male and female occupations, the boundaries between male and female gender roles are becoming increasingly blurred. Traditional gender stereotypes are merging, and androgyny has become a trend ( Wenting et al, 2022 ). The proposal of androgyny means that individuals can freely manifest both male and female characteristics without following traditional gender stereotypes ( Bem, 1974 ).…”

“…As women’s societal status rises, most individuals’ attitudes toward gender roles tend to be more open, but they may not necessarily abandon gender stereotypes ( Hudders and Vyncke, 2013 ). In contrast, in e-commerce live broadcasting research, gender ideology moderates the effect of non-stereotypical gender role endorsements by streamers on consumers’ product preferences ( Wenting et al, 2022 ). Thus, Hypothesis 3 and its sub-hypotheses of this study can be formulated as follows:…”

“…Nowadays, it is very common for male (female) streamers to sell female (male) oriented products ( Wang and Dong, 2022 ). Current research focuses on the impact of an streamer’s gender role (single gender/androgyny) on consumer product preference ( Wenting et al, 2022 ). Some studies have also examined the effectiveness of male streamers in cross-gender endorsement and then confirmed that female consumers feel gender identity incongruence due to male streamers’ endorsement of female products, which in turn negatively affects their purchase intention ( Chen et al, 2024 ).…”