Activity 20 Personal ads

Cameron et al did some research on personal ads in 1977, This research concluded that women promote themselves in terms of physical and personality traits while men promoted themselves in more materialistic ways such as homeowner or professional i.e implying they would be good providers. Each was they believed the other was looking for.

The activity was to look at 20 personal ads for each sex and see if you agree with Cameron's findings.

Both sexes tended to use physical attributes, personality attributes and an indication of interests in their ads. So from that point of view I do not agree with Cameron. But both are still advertising themselves in terms of what they believe the other want, but the expectations about what the other wants have changed.


Society has changed a lot in 30 years, and the gender stereotypes have radically altered. So what people want from relationships have changed. Some specify they want a long term relationship. Others just seem to want fun.

Also roles within a relationship are different. Men are no longer expected to be the bread winners and house husbands are becoming more common. Most people expect to share the roles within a relationship.

The two sexes are now much closer together in terms of roles. Women can be professional and men can do housework. Some of the mens ads actually specified they would do housework and used the word 'romantic' The presumption is that women like this in a man. But that presumes the women are still stuck in the old stereotyping. So maybe society hasn't changed as much as I think it has?

I view this from the perspective of a professional woman, in a relationship where my partner is a househusband. My observations are coloured by my perspective. There are still a lot of 'traditional' relationships and people out there. And their perspective on this would be different to mine.

So what have I learned from this?

The date of research is important. When looking at child development 30 year old research can still be very relevant. How children develop wont change much. Society however is continually evolving and it is that factor that makes Cameron's results appear wrong .

This shows how careful you have to be about sources in assessing their relevance to what you are doing.

It is interesting that if Cameron's work was repeated today it wuld have to encompass dating sites and internet personal ads. Interestingly one of the problems with the internet is its lack of personal contact and the ability to pretend to be something or someone you are not. It is interesting that in this digital age, ads in old fashioned media are still used. Maybe people trust papers more?

I thought this would be an easy task - and assumed I knew the result. While it was easy (once I had found some ads!) the results were surprising.