Research article Communality sells: The impact of perceivers’ sexism on the evaluation of women’s portrayals in advertisements MARTINA INFANGER 1 * , JANINE BOSAK 2 AND SABINE SCZESNY 1 1 Department of Psychology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland; 2 Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland Abstract Portrayals of women in advertisements have a significant impact on the maintenance of gender stereotypes in society. Therefore, the present research investigates the effectiveness of communal and agentic female characters in advertisements as well as the question how evaluations of such characters are influenced by perceivers’ sexist attitudes toward women. Results show that communal female advertising characters are evaluated more favorably than agentic ones and that these evaluations predict advertising effectiveness. Benevolent sexism predicts more positive evaluations of communal female advertising characters (studies 1 and 2). Moreover, hostile sexism predicts less positive evaluations of agentic female advertising characters when it is assessed under time pressure (Study 2). Implications of these findings for the perpetuation of gender stereotypes in advertisements and in society are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. In Western societies, the social roles inhabited by men and women have undergone noticeable changes over the past decades (e.g., Diekman & Goodfriend, 2006). However, por- trayals of women in advertisements have not kept pace with these changes, and as powerful communicators of values and beliefs, they continue to reinforce gender stereotypes in soci- ety (Davies, Spencer, & Steele, 2005; Hurtz & Durkin, 2004; Lindner, 2004). Women in advertising are still portrayed predominantly in communal roles, that is, as housewives or as caring mothers in domestic settings. These communal portrayals depict women as possessing stereotypically feminine traits, such as being gentle, shy, helpless, dreamy, submissive, dependent, and subservient to men (Harker, Harker, & Svensen, 2005; Kang, 1997; Lindner, 2004; Royo-Vela, Aldas- Manzano, Kuster-Boluda, & Vila-Lopez, 2007). In contrast, women are underrepresented in agentic role portrayals, for example, as competent, dynamic, and efficient career women. Although considerable research has investigated how women are portrayed in advertisements (e.g., Harker et al., 2005; Royo-Vela et al., 2007), few studies to date have com- pared evaluations of communal and agentic female advertising characters. Researchers have usually found more positive reactions to stereotypical portrayals of women, such as house- wives, compared with counterstereotypical portrayals, such as business women (even when products were gender-neutral, such as cell phones; Orth & Holancova, 2004; Vantomme, Geuens, & Dewitte, 2005). However, there is also evidence of positive reactions toward counterstereotypical female portrayals, at least among some women (even when the advertised product was rather feminine, such as a food product; Jaffe & Berger, 1994; for an overview, see Whipple & Courtney, 1985). This raises the question whether perceivers’ attitudes toward women, that is, their sexism, might constitute an important predictor of the evaluation of female advertising characters. Ambivalent sexism theory (Glick & Fiske, 1996) posits a distinction between sexist beliefs about women that are negative (hostile) or subjectively positive (benevolent) in tone. Ambivalent sexism results from men’s structural power (con- trol over important social, political, and economic institutions) and the simultaneous interdependence between the sexes, which lends women dyadic power (because of men’s depen- dence on them as wives, mothers, and romantic partners). Hostile sexism (HS) toward women is based on a clear antipathy toward and derogation of women and serves to justify the power of men. Generally, HS is directed toward women who challenge gendered role expectations and tradi- tional power relations, such as career women (Glick, Diebold, Bailey-Werner, & Zhu, 1997). Thus, HS is associated with negative attitudes toward women in counterstereotypical, agentic roles (e.g., Glick et al., 1997). Benevolent sexism (BS), on the contrary, consists of subjectively positive attitudes that describe women not only as wonderful (e.g., as purer than men) but also as weak (i.e., in need of protection and financial provision from men). Therefore, benevolent sexists view women as best suited for low status roles (Glick & Fiske, 1996; Lee, Fiske, & Glick, 2010). Indeed, benevolent sexist attitudes are reserved for gender-stereotypical women, rewarding them for conforming to low status, traditional roles (e.g., as housewives; Glick et al., 1997). However, the existing literature has not yet addressed the question of whether HS and BS are associated with attitudes toward agentic and communal women in the context of advertising. *Correspondence to: Martina Infanger, Department of Psychology, University of Bern, Muesmattstr. 45, 3000 Bern, Switzerland. E-mail:martina.infanger@psy.unibe.ch European Journal of Social Psychology, Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. (2011) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.868 Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received 21 July 2010, Accepted 19 October 2011