The Effect of Masculinity and Femininity Incongruence on Consumer Responses to Brands

Wu, Xiu; Grohmann, Bianca

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS DIVERSITY

The Effect of Masculinity and Femininity Incongruence on Consumer Responses to Brands

Author(s): Xiu Wu, Bianca Grohmann

Citation: Xiu Wu, Bianca Grohmann, (2021) "The Effect of Masculinity and Femininity Incongruence on Consumer Responses to Brands," Journal of Business Diversity, Vol. 21, Iss. 1, pp. 95-120

Article Type: Research paper

Publisher: North American Business Press

Abstract:

This article examines the effect of incongruence between consumer gender and brand gender on consumers’ affective, cognitive, behavioral and relational responses toward brands. It introduces the notion of consumer-brand boundary as the perceived psychological distance between a consumer and a focal brand, validates a measure of this construct, and demonstrates that consumer-brand boundary mediates gender incongruence effects. Two studies show that both masculinity and femininity incongruence increase consumer-brand boundary, and that lower masculinity incongruence only mitigates consumer-brand boundary when femininity incongruence is also low (but not when it is high). Implications for theory and managerial practice are discussed.