The influence of androgynous streamers on consumers’ product preferences

Abstract

Since the rapid development of network technology, the rise of live-streaming shopping platforms has followed. Some streamers influence consumers’ preferences for products through their gender role attributes, thus generating great commercial value. Based on attachment theory and using an experimental approach, this study explored the impact of streamers’ gender roles (single gender/androgyny) on consumers’ preferences through 2 studies. Study 1 shows the androgynous streamer elicits a higher product preference than the single-gender (masculine and feminine) streamer. Study 2 demonstrates the moderating effect of gender stereotypes through 2 experiments to construct clear boundary conditions for the main effect and the results show that regardless of whether the streamer is male or female when individuals have a high gender stereotype, the single-gender streamer leads to a higher product preference than the androgynous streamer. When individuals have a low gender stereotype, the androgynous streamer promotes a higher product preference than the single-gender streamer.