A human-centric issue that has not been considered in the design of end-user programming environments is whether gender differences exist that are important to the design of these environments. Ignoring this issue would miss the opportunity of enhancing the effectiveness of end-user programmers by incorporating appropriate mechanisms to support gender-associated differences in decision making, learning, and problem solving. This paper takes a first step toward building a foundation for investigating this issue by surveying gender difference literature from five domains with an eye toward possible implications for end-user programming. We present a taxonomy of this literature, and derive a number of specific issues for each element of the taxonomy (stated as hypotheses). This foundation provides a starting point for organized investigations into issues that may be important for making breakthroughs in the effectiveness of end-user programmers.

898-2534). This research is based on a portion of the author’s doctoral dissertation. Joel Cohen,

Abstract: An experiment in which 329 undergraduates (186 females, 143 males) read magazine articles or advertisements for four products provides support for Meyers-Levy's selectivity hypothesis, which suggests that females are comprehensive information processors, while males utilize heuristics to process information schematically. The results suggest that women exposed to promotional messages: processed messages more thoroughly, based on cognitive responses generated; responded more favorably than men to mediated promotional messages, based on a series of attitudinal and believability measures; and expressed more favorable dispositions toward mediated communications in general. Do men and women process promotional communications differently? The issue of gender has received increased attention from researchers in advertising and public relations. One major avenue of research has involved critical analyses of portrayals of women and men

Behavioral studies suggest that women and men differ in the strategic elaboration of verbally encoded information especially in the absence of external task demand. However, measuring such covert processing requires other than behavioral data. The present study used event-related potentials to compare sexes in lower and higher order semantic processing during the passive reading of semantically related and unrelated word pairs. Women and men showed the same early context effect in the P1--N1 transition period. This finding indicates that the initial lexical--semantic access is similar in men and women. In contrast, sexes differed in higher order semantic processing. Women showed an earlier and longer lasting context effect in the N400 accompanied by larger signal strength in temporal networks similarly recruited by men and women. The results suggest that women spontaneously conduct a deeper semantic analysis. This leads to faster processing of related words in the active neural networks as reflected in a shorter stability of the N400 map in women. Taken together, the findings demonstrate that there is a selective sex difference in the controlled semantic analysis during passive word reading that is not reflected in different functional organization but in the depth of processing. Keywords: ERP, gender, language processing, N400, P1, semantic integration

The Internet provides unlimited opportunities for “narrowcasting, ” or individualized advertising, in the automobile industry. While car manufacturers attempt to drive sales with targeted advertising, efforts collapse at the dealership as customers with diverse backgrounds, lifestyles, and preferences are presented with an identical sales pitch. Likewise, existing automobile commerce sites fail to respond to a customer’s personal needs, instead relying on a filtering system for selecting models. After using schema theory to analyze car shopping and individualized advertising on the Internet, the author presents a prototype customer-driven hypermedia interface that generates unique, narrowcast sales presentations for individual users. Targeted Advertising, Narrowcasting, and Schema Theory Marketers spend billions of dollars each year trying to find the most receptive audiences for their products through targeted advertising. For example, products targeted towards men are often promoted in Sports Illustrated, GQ, and Motor Trend magazines, while advertisers in search of female customers may use Women’s Day, O, and

In order to advance our understanding of the difficulties that advertisers face in communicating with male and female audiences, this paper first summarizes practitioner debate concerning sex-specific advertising strategies. Next, the academic marketing and social psychology literature concerning gender and sex differences in information processing are reviewed. The recommendations of academic theory are compared and contrasted with current advertising practice. Finally, an individual differences framework that treats aspects of gender identity independently of biological sex is proposed. Sex-Specific Advertising Strategies: The Practitioner Point of View The attention that gender has received notwithstanding, not all practitioners agree on its importance to marketing strategy. On the surface, increasingly blurred role distinctions would appear to argue against the importance of gender as a marketing issue. However, the prominent position that discussions of gender occupy in trade and practitioner journals cannot easily be reconciled with the view that gender is only a minor consideration in advertising effectiveness. In fact, it is entirely possible that debate persists because gender has become of greater rather than lesser importance as male and female roles continue to shift.

The present study investigates the influence of mood on selfreferencing. Two alternative explanations regarding selfreferencing effects are contrasted. On the one hand, it can be hypothesized that self-referencing is a data-driven, high elaboration, bottom-up process, manifested under conditions of high motivation (e.g. when mood is negative). Alternatively, it can also be hypothesized that self-referencing is a schema-based topdown process, manifested under conditions of low motivation (e.g. when mood is positive). A 2 (positive versus negative mood) by 2 (self-referencing versus not self-referencing) design shows that self-referencing effects increase under conditions of negative mood, suggesting that self-referencing is a data-driven bottom-up process. 1 Advertisers often try to persuade consumers by

Rich Lutz, Barry Schlenker, David Reibstein and Alan Sawyer for comments on a draft. Social Identity in Marketing Research- 2-