Download THE FEMALE CONSUMER, Rosemary Scott. New York: John Wiley

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THE FEMALE CONSUMER, Rosemary Scott. New
York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Halsted Press, 1976.
352 pp. $24.95.
At first glance. The Eemale Consumer appears to
be about female consumption behavior. Though this
is true to some extent, closer inspection of the book
leads to the realization that the underlying purpose
is to alter the notion that "it's a man's world." In
general, Rosemary Scott—a doctorate researcher in
applied social psychology at The University of Aston
in Birmingham—emphasizes the importance of the
female to marketers and attempts to persuade marketers to alter some of their more traditional approaches
to women's markets.
The first part of the book is primarily descriptive,
presenting secondary data on female purchasing behavior in food and nonfood markets. This section
provides the rationale for the book: the importance
of the female to marketers. Many of the studies
providing data for this and subsequent sections of
the book were conducted in the IJnited Kingdom;
however, Scott also draws heavily upon research
conducted in the United States.
The second part of The Female Consumer focuses
on female attitudes toward shopping, in-store behavior, and responses to pricing, branding, product innovation, and convenience items. Scott asserts that
there is a lack of creativity and an adherence to cultural
stereotypes in researchers' choice of variables in
studying female consumers. Factors such as psychological masculinity, ambition, and aggression are typically omitted from investigation, whereas housewifery
and child-care variables are included.
The author next discusses the influence of the family
and significant others on female purchasing decisions,
as well as the behavior of the woman buying for herself.
In this section, Scott describes markets which traditionally have been female-dominated, predicts further
erosion of market delineation on a sexual (male versus
female) basis, and challenges the proposition that
single and married females constitute two distinct
market segments.
The book then moves to an investigation of media
habits and media stereotypes of wom6n. Following
this, Scott examines the pervasive Y chromosome in
industry and universities as part of the reason for
the perpetuation of myths and marketing approaches
to women. This section also compares and contrasts
females with blacks. The final section of the book
identifies sources of bias in researching female cohsumers, and makes suggestions for innovative stratification of the female market.
The Female Consumer is well written, with clear,
concise presentation and organization. Though the
book centers around research on female consumption
and purchasing patterns, the intent seems to be to
reform as much as to inform. Ms. Scott questions
the continued applicability of current marketing ap-
JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, FEBRUARY 1977
proaches and appeals to the female consumer, and
makes suggestions for change.
This book is unique in its area, and makes provocative reading. It could be used as a primary text in
a course on sex roles in marketing/consumer behavior,
but also would be a useful reference for consumer
behavior researchers or practitioners. It integrates
behavioral theory, research, and practice in an interesting discussion of the multifaceted nature of female
(and male) consumer behavior.
LINDA L . GOLDEN
The University of Texas at Austin
THE VOLUNTEER SUBJECT, Robert Rosenthal
and Ralph L. Rosnow. New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1975. xiv + 266 pp. $15.75.
Marketing research so regularly depends on volunteer respondents for its data base that titling a volume
The Volunteer Subject may well imply to the marketer
the same sort of redundancy as in the quote, "This
robbery was committed by thieves." Yet in other
disciplines, such as social psychology, volunteers were
not often used for research purposes until recently;
instead a "captive population" of sophomores was
coerced into research participation by course requirements. Given the current federal push toward informed
consent, psychologists are increasingly turning to
volunteers. It is within this context that Rosenthal
and Rosnow, both social psychologists who have done
pioneering work on experimental artifacts in behavioral research [1, 2], provide a volume focusing on the
ways in which volunteers may behave differently from
nonvolunteers in research settings just as a consequence of their volunteer status. Although the volume
is as exhausting as it is exhaustive, and although it
focuses primarily on laboratory experiments rather
than survey research, the book should be required
reading for anyone contemplating a marketing research
study.
Following an introduction in which Rosenthal and
Rosnow claim a respectable reliability of .52 for
volunteering behavior across studies. Chapter 2 focuses on personality differences between volunteers
and nonvolunteers, and Chapter 3 provides an equally
exhaustive review of the effects of situational differences on the two "types" of research participants.
The review is thorough and in the best scholarly
tradition; however, the conclusions and action implications are even more valuable to the marketer.
By empirical decision rule, Rosenthal and Rosnow
categorize personality and situational differences in
volunteering into those of high, intermediate, low,
and minimal confidence on the basis of the evidence.
For example, it is not surprising that volunteers tend
(maximal confidence) to be better educated, of higher
social class, and more intelligent and to have a greater
need for approval than nonvolunteers; or, situationally, that individuals interested in the research as well