PERCEIVED QUALITY AND RELIABILITY OF INDUSTRIALLY-MANUFACTURED GENDERED PRODUCTS.

In an effort to help designers conceive market successful products, researchers have launched the concept of product personality. The relevance of the product personality concept resides in the personality congruence theory -- people like products with a personality similar to theirs. Several product personality models have been developed, including one that divides the world of products into four categories: female, feminine, masculine and male. How effective is such a model? Can any product be considered gendered? Moreover, researchers and scholars have analysed the complex relationship between gendered objects and the persons to whom these objects are addressed, reaching a multitude of conclusions. What has not yet been studied is the relationship between the product's gender and the perceived quality and reliability of the product as viewed from the same gender consumer's perspective. This paper answers the above questions and analyses the unstudied relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]