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Sociability and thanking behaviour : gender differences in customer courtesy during purchase interactions

The aim of this study was to determine what differences exist between male and female customers in their displays of courtesy during purchasing interactions with cashiers. Based on previous research, it was hypothesized that female customers would display more sociability than male customers. Specifically, it was hypothesized that females would display more verbal behaviours, more eye contact and more smiling than male customers. These measures were combined into a composite measure of total sociability. Data were collected in three locations, the University of Victoria cafeteria, a coffee shop and a fast-food restaurant through unobtrusive direct field observation by two coders. Data analysis included inter-coder reliability, as well as independent means tests for each component measure, and the composite measure of total sociability. Consistent with the hypotheses, female customers displayed more verbal behaviours, smiling and eye contact, and correspondingly, more total sociability than male customers. While each of these differences was statistically significant, very little of the variance was explained by gender.

  1. http://hdl.handle.net/1828/724
Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/724
Date10 April 2008
CreatorsManett, Jason Daniel.
ContributorsBaker, P. Morgan.
Source SetsUniversity of Victoria
Detected LanguageEnglish

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