Do Feminine Brands Seem More Sustainable? Exploring the Femininity–Sustainability Link in Consumer Perceptions
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction/Problem Statement Prior research suggests that people associate sustainable consumption with femininity (Pinna, 2020). Unknown, however, is whether the inverse link exists, i.e., do consumers likewise assume that feminine products are more sustainable. This question has become increasingly important as sustainability continues to play a key role in consumer purchase decisions. If the sustainability-femininity link extends to brand perceptions, consumers may infer higher sustainability from brands perceived as more feminine, regardless of brands’ actual sustainability practices. Our study investigates this possibility by examining whether perceptions of femininity correlate with perceived sustainability in evaluations of real-world brands. Methods/Approach We conducted a preregistered study with 1200 participants to test whether femininity and sustainability perceptions correlate with sustainability perceptions of real-world brands. In a between-subjects design, participants were randomly assigned to rate either the perceived femininity or perceived sustainability of 16 brands across several different product categories. The brands used were sourced from The Good Shopping Guide, which provides (objective) sustainability ratings of companies (score from 1-100) based on their impact on the environment, animals, and people. Participants saw an equal number of independently rated sustainable and unsustainable brands. Findings/Implications Overall, correlations between brand sustainability and femininity were not significant. Across product categories correlation coefficients ranged from r=-.31 to r=.15. Notably, when we looked at brands from product categories that target specific genders (e.g., personal care) the correlation between sustainability and femininity was negative, but when looking at brands from non-gendered categories (e.g., food), the predicted positive correlation emerged. While overall the results did not support our main predictions, follow up analyses suggest that femininity and sustainability perceptions may correlate more strongly in contexts where brands are not explicitly targeted toward a specific gender. This opens avenues for future research into the situational and category-specific factors that shape brand perception. References Pinna, M. (2020). Do gender identities of femininity and masculinity affect the intention to buy ethical products? Psychology & Marketing, 37(3), 384–397. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21298.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.009 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".