Wine, women, suspiciousness and advertising

Women college students (N = 66) viewed videotapes of a soap opera episode and a rock music program, ostensibly to evaluate the appeal of such material to college women. Different versions of the videotape included zero, three or nine wine commercials. Refreshments, including white wine, were available to the subjects. Suspiciousness about the experiment was evaluated through an open-ended questionnaire, responses to which were independently content-analyzed by two scorers. Major findings were as follows: Women exposed to nine wine commercials consumed more wine than those exposed to three. Twelve women were judged suspicious about the experiment, but none showed continued specific awareness of the study's true purpose. The differential consumption patterns of women in the three-wine-commercial and nine-wine-commercial conditions were exaggerated among suspicious women. These findings, in light of previous observations, suggest opposite reactions to soft-sell versus hard-sell persuasive appeals by men and women, notably ones predisposed to be suspicious about the purpose of experiments.