The Role of Fictionality on Gender Differences in Responses to Emotional Melodramatic Entertainment

Three studies investigate gender differences in consumers’ evaluations of emotional melodramatic short stories. We hypothesize and find that gender and the fictionality (i.e., whether it is real or fictitious) of emotionally melodramatic stories interact to influence consumer’s overall evaluations of the stories. Specifically, while females form more favorable overall evaluations when melodramatic stories are real (vs. fictitious), males respond more favorably when the stories are fictitious (vs. real). Further, this pattern only arises when consumers receive credible information regarding a story’s fictionality. We explore underlying processes for these effects.

Citation:

Jennifer Argo, Rui (Juliet) Zhu, and Darren Dahl (2007) ,"The Role of Fictionality on Gender Differences in Responses to Emotional Melodramatic Entertainment", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 34, eds. Gavan Fitzsimons and Vicki Morwitz, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 557-558.