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126 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