Female trust in gay male sales assistants
The recent literature has revealed that heterosexual female shoppers prefer to obtain advice from and working with gay male sales associates over female associates. This is especially evident when the shoppers believe the female staff are more physically attractive or younger than them.
This preference can be explained by the evolutionary theory of intrasexual competition, which suggests that women are innately driven to perceive attractive and feminine women as competition in attracting or retaining a heterosexual man. As a result, female shoppers often attribute more trustworthiness to gay male sales associates, and thus prefer to interact with them in their shopping journey as opposed to the heterosexual female staff.
However, research into this topic lacks an understanding of how the gay male sales associate-heterosexual female shopper relationship is formed. Drawing on evolutionary models of intrasexual competition, this research addresses this gap with 4 studies. Study 1 seeks to understand how female shoppers discern and perceive gay male sales associates in retail settings. Study 2 investigates the influence of perceived intrasexual competition by female customers on perceived trust in advice from gay male sales staff. Study 3 shows that such preference for a gay male sales associate manifests when female shoppers purchase a good that enhances their physical appearance. Lastly, Study 4 clarifies the type of consumption situations and interpersonal characteristics that influence this preference.
Method and sample
Study 1 conducted semi-structured interviews with a sample of female participants (N=23) who were present in a shopping district located in a large metropolitan Australian city with a large gay population. The interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and analysed using the NVivo 11 software and the axial coding method.
Study 2 involved an online survey of undergraduate heterosexual female students (N=365) from a mid-sized university in a metropolitan city in the United States, recruited through the university’s participant pool recruitment system. Participants were asked about their trust in a heterosexual female and a gay male sales associate and their concern about intrasexual female competition, by indicating their level of agreement with several items a on 7-point Likert scale.
Study 3 uses an experimental design, recruiting 244 participants from both the participant pool recruitment system at a mid-sized university in a metropolitan city in the United States and Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). However, only participants who correctly reported the sexual orientation of their assigned associate were included in the analysis (N=219).
Using a similar design to Study 3, Study 4 recruited from a mid-sized university’s psychology participant pool, and screened out participants who failed to correctly report the sexual orientation of their assigned sales associate in the analysis (N=160).
Key findings
Study 1 finds that heterosexual women can discern gay male sales associates primarily by looking for attributes associated with existing gay stereotypes and physical cues such as gestures, physical appearance, voice, the use of cosmetics, and their employment in the cosmetics or fashion department. Moreover, findings suggest that female shoppers felt comfortable and important during their interactions with gay male sales associates and viewed these employees as attentive and their advice as more trustworthy compared to advice from heterosexual female employees.
Study 2 revealed that female shoppers prefer recommendations from gay male sales associate when they believe they are in appearance-related rivalry with a heterosexual female sales associate.
In Study 3, this preference is more likely to occur when female shoppers choose merchandise that serves an appearance-enhancement function, for example, apparel and cosmetics, in comparison with other products that did not evoke feelings of appearance-related competitiveness, for example, vacuums.
Finally, Study 4 shows that female buyers who perceived themselves as more attractive to achieve mating-related objective were more likely to prefer working with gay male over the heterosexual female sales associate. This relationship is mediated by their perceived positive intent of the associate during their sales interaction.
Recommendations
Physical retail organisations, particularly high-end specialty stores and luxury boutiques, should work to increase diversity and not discriminate gay men in the hiring process, for instance, recruitment preferences should not be made based on sexual orientation. Organisations should also note that customers may be inclined to avoid retail settings in which they sense rivalry or a disrupted self-concept. Therefore, having a diverse workforce allows customers the option to work with their preferable associates and prevents them from feeling stigmatised and thus patronising online retailers.
Gay male retail employees should also be considerate when displaying signals of flamboyance in retail settings as it may receive mixed responses from customers. They may realise monetary benefits by attracting female customers while at the same time experience backlash from other customers who misinterpret such signals or perceive them as too explicit in nature.
Researcher
More information
The research article is also available on eprints.