The ‘I’ of the beholder

AbstractThis research investigates gender differences in terms of the response to altruistic and egoistic charitable appeals, and demonstrates how self-referencing can influence advertising processing under different message frames. An experiment is conducted through the internet. Self-referencing is operationalised in perceived orientation of a non-profit organisation. When self-referencing is high, the phenomenon of value congruity is observed that female participants tend to be convinced by the altruistic appeal and male counterparts are more likely to be persuaded by the egoistic appeal. More importantly, the contrast effects are found when the perceived orientation of the NPO is otherreferencing. In this case, the egoistic appeal is more effective for women and the altruistic appeal is more persuasive for men. Implications of the current findings for existing theory are discussed, along with directions for future research. Additional informationNotes on contributorsChun-Tuan ChangChun-Tuan Chang is an associate professor at the department of Business Management, National Sun Yat-sen University. She received her PhD from the University of Edinburgh. Current research interests include advertising, consumer information processing, green marketing and corporate philanthropic influences on consumer behaviour. Her papers have been published in Psychology & Marketing; Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Advances in Consumer Research and elsewhere.Yu-Kang LeeYu-Kang Lee (PhD, The University of Edinburgh, UK) is associate professor of Political Economy at National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan. His main research interests include charity donation behaviour, neuropolitics, social neuroscience, political communication, and public policy. His recent research findings appear in a variety of journals such as Modern Asian Studies, Social Behavior and Personality, The Social Science Journal and Journal of Applied Social Psychology.