The Effects of Gender and Argument Strength on the Processing of Word-of-Mouth Communication

This study explores the effects of gender and message argument strength in a unique context: word-of-mouth (WOM) communication. We report the results of an experiment (n=130) in which communicator gender and argument strength are manipulated, and crossed with WOM recipient gender. Our results show that while women describe themselves as being more receptive to WOM in general than males, when specific WOM information is received and processed, both sexes rate that information as equally diagnostic in forming product judgments. As expected, argument strength showed powerful main effects in that stronger arguments led to more positive perceptions of the WOM information’s diagnosticity (usefulness), higher post-WOM brand evaluations, and greater perceived communicator credibility (regardless of the sex of the speaker or the recipient). However, a significant interaction between speaker gender and argument strength was found. Interestingly, male communicators presenting strong arguments fostered the most positive brand attitudes of all the conditions, but male communicators presenting weak arguments led to the lowest brand attitudes. Our results show that positive WOM is most influential on brand evaluations when the communicator’s sex and the WOM recipient’s sex are opposite (i.e., males’ brand evaluations were more influenced by WOM information communicated by a woman and vice versa).

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