Are You Thinking About Gender? The Key Mediating Role of Gender Salience for Consumer Behavior
(A2026-133380)

AUTHORS

Elisabeth Flores, Universität Augsburg; Michael Paul, University of Augsburg

ABSTRACT

Research has shown that company actions (e.g., gendered ads) can influence consumer behavior related to gender. While studies considered mediators such as perceived brand gender, they overlooked the key mediator of gender salience to examine if gender has been initially salient in consumers’ cognition.This research explores whether gender salience is a key mindset mediator for person and environment antecedents influencing gender-related consumer behavior. We conduct three 2 (female vs. male) x 2 (public vs. private) between-subjects online experiments in Germany and the UK. We show that person (female vs. male) and environment (public vs. private) antecedents increase gender salience. Moreover, female vs. male strengthens the effect of public vs. private on gender expression intention and gender-congruent choice through gender salience. Managers and researchers should treat gender salience as a default variable, incorporating it into their market studies on gender‑related behavior.