Sexual Priming: The Influence Of Advertisement
In accordance with the standardized guidelines for informed consent, prospective participants were notified of the potential risks and benefits of participating in the study before being introduced to the research material. If the student verbally agreed to participate, he or she was given one of three different Facebook profiles, each of which consisted of a gender neutral profile with advertisements that could be primed in different ways to a viewer. In parts of the study, participants viewed a potentially sexual, potentially romantic and potentially educationally perceived profiles depending on the advertisements. Each of the three documents with the same Facebook profile but different advertisements, depicted the same initial situation with alternate conditions (Sexual, Romantic, or Educational) that ultimately led to different outcomes of events. On a scale from one to six, participants had to rate one, for strongly disagree to six, strongly agree on whether riley seemed: educated, flirtatious, sensitive, seductive, kind, tender, sentimental, provocative, outgoing, and sexy. On the same scale participants had to rate themselves accordingly. This showed what personality the participants had in accordance to their choice of judgment. They had to rate themselves one to six on ten things: assertiveness, sensitivity, confidence, emotional, businesslike, romantic, decisive, understanding, fearless and warm hearted. After reading the selected profile, rating the profile, then rating themselves, they were asked to select their gender, age, ethnicity/race, tell whether English was the first language spoken, tell whether he/she is an FIU student, and finally the relationship status of the participant. Lastly the participant had to determine what they thing Riley Washington’s gender is and whether they thought the profile focused on sexuality, romance or education.
In the sexual condition, a questionnaire was given after after a generic gender neutral profile was examined. The profile consisted of a general description of a so called, Riley Washington, and consisted of pictures of advertisements for a men’s cologne, “Axe Moment,” where a seemingly naked woman is hugging a shirtless man from behind while he is spraying himself with the cologne. This sends out a bit of a provocative message saying if you use this cologne your partner will be more sexually attracted to you. Frankly, on a Facebook profile this may come across as sexual when asked. Another add displayed is a woman standing over a man holding a drink sending a message that when drinking SKY Vodka (the type of drink advertised) you too can feel powerful over men. The last advertisement displayed was a GUCCI GUILTY ad where there is a seemingly naked man over a seemingly naked girl and they seem to be laying down implying that wearing this perfume/cologne will get you naked in bed with the opposite sex. Obviously, these ads are extremely sexualized and may influence the viewer regardless of Riley’s intention.
In the romantic condition there were three advertisements with the same exact Facebook profile that was in the sexual condition and in the educational condition. The advertisements here were on perfume for women which appeared to have a crystal bottle with a couple riding horseback and kissing in the back. A dating website called eHarmony was also displayed where a woman was hugging a guy happy as can be. The third displayed a romantic get away in a place called Sandals where the couple seem to be making a toast while smiling and enjoying the view and the outdoors.
In the last condition, which was the educational condition another three different advertisements with the same profile were observed and judged. In this part the ads were about the University of Florida, Financial Aid, and ABC Academy advertising a free tour. In this they advertised schools and getting into schools. This was meant to influence the judgments of the viewers and test whether the educational ads have anything to do with how they judge the profile.
Although there existed many dependent variables which were tested, the primary focus was whether the different types of advertisements influenced the judgments of viewers on a generic profile. The three primary predictions can be established well with observations and research as proof. First, we predict that participants who see sexualized advertisements accompanying a fake Facebook profile will view the Facebook user in a more sexualized manner (more flirtatious, seductive, sexy and provocative) than participants who see romance or educational advertisements. Second, we predict that participants who see romance advertisements accompanying the fake Facebook profile will view the Facebook user romantically (more sensitive, kind, tender, and sentimental) than participants who see sexualized or educational advertisements. Third, when shown an educational advertisement.
Results
Using survey conditions, romantic, educational, and sexual, as our independent variables, we ran a manipulation check and saw a significant effect, X2(4) =185. 608, p <. 001. Participants in the sexuality ads never chose the educational, but rather chose 88. 9% sexual profile and 11. 1% a romantic profile. In the romantic scenario no participant chose the educational profile judgment yet again and rather showed 9. 5% sexual and 90. 5% chose romantic. When showed the Education ads on a profile the participants chose that his profile deemed to be educational 95. 2% of the time and romantic about 4. 8% of the time. No participant chose that this profile was sexual in any way. See Appendix B.
For our main analysis, our first One-Way ANOVA test revealed significant differences among our independent variable, the profile conditions (Sexuality, romantic, and educational). The dependent variable that riley seems flirtatious was tested where F(2, 117) = 4. 442, p= 0. 014. A turkey post hoc test followed showing the sexuality profile was more likely to be perceived as flirtatious/provocative (M=3. 44, SD=1. 21) than the romantic condition (M=2. 81, SD=. 80).
However, between the romantic perception and the Education perception there was no significant difference for (N=42 –for both). Where the romance was M=2. 81, SD= 0. 80 and Educational was M=2. 90 SD=0. 98. In the condition where riley seemed to be flirtatious, most of the time there was a positive correlation with the type of advertisement and riley being considered flirtatious.
Another point of interest would have been the sentimental perception of participants based on the three profiles with selected advertisements. A One-Way ANOVA test was run using different conditions (Sexual, romantic and educational) as the independent variables the number of counterfactuals produced the dependent variable. The results showed that riley was sentimental as not significant where F (2, 117) = 4. 39, p=0. 14. our initial prediction was supported given that (M=3. 5, SD= 0. 85) in the sexual condition, (M=4. 095, SD=1. 01) and in the educational condition (M= 3. 78, SD= 0. 87) did not differ. Since the p-value for the ANOVA tests was not significant, there was no need to run the post hoc tests.
Discussion
We predicted that each advertisement would have an influence on the choice of the participant, and it did. The participants did get influenced by the types of ad they were shown on the profiles. First, we predict that participants who see sexualized advertisements accompanying a fake Facebook profile will view the Facebook user in a more sexualized manner (more flirtatious, seductive, sexy and provocative) than participants who see romance or educational advertisements. Second, we predict that participants who see romance advertisements accompanying the fake Facebook profile will view the Facebook user romantically (more sensitive, kind, tender, and sentimental) than participants who see sexualized or educational advertisements. Third, when shown an educational advertisement.
These predictions were supported by the data collected, when looking at an advertisement, it could be said that the advertisement being looked at also has to do with the viewer’s perception of the person regardless of what the person has to say. This could be due to a visual interpretation of the viewer and how images affect the mind more than words do. This only begs the question, what if we took this further and involved positive and negative feedback in the form of quizzes before participants evaluated the profiles? Would this change their opinion to make the opinions more or less harsh or would it have no effect at all?
