It’s not unusual to hear females talk about how they need to behave cautiously around males because they are afraid of leading them on unintentionally. From the heterosexual male perspective, the twirling of hair during a conversation or even looking across the room at a guy can often make him wonder if you’re sexually interested in him. Likewise, it’s not rare to come across dudes who endlessly complain about how hard it is to catch a lady’s eye. It seems you could be as charming or smooth as it gets but in the end she’ll turn the other way. A recent paper published by the Association for Psychological Science provides an evolutionary perspective on these everyday awkward sexual encounters.
ROXANA PARSA/THE VARSITY
Carin Perilloux and her coworkers at the University of Texas conducted a study involving a sample of undergraduates (96 men and 103 women) in an attempt to quantify perceptions of sexual attraction. The students were randomly split into male-female pairs and were asked to chat with each other for a few minutes about neutral topics. After the interaction, both conversation partners filled out a survey on their level of interest in the other person and then rate the other person’s interest in them.
The results of the study showed that males tended to overestimate how attracted females were to them. Why? Using evolutionary reasoning, it takes little effort for a man to impregnate a woman so the cost of a missed opportunity to mate outweighs the cost of being rejected. Hence, the male’s eagerness to assume a female is reciprocating. On the other hand, females in the study tended to underestimate how attracted guys were to them. An answer to why they did this may be found in evolutionary biology.
“Because women have to invest more — you know, carry a child, give birth to a child — they tend to be more choosy in their mating strategies,” says Amy Muise, a social psychologist at U of T.
“The article suggests that [women] underperceive because it can deter unwanted sexual advances from men, and it can help women avoid making a bad choice. Because it’s not as costly for men, they’re better overperceiving because then they won’t miss out on an opportunity.”
Another interesting finding was that the men who overperceived sexual interest were more likely to rate themselves as being highly attractive. However, the females in the sample did not show any increased attraction to these self-proclaimed attractive guys. Conversely, the females that the men found most desirable were not aware of their good looks. In fact, the women that were rated hottest by the men did not rate themselves any more attractive than the average.
So as far as this study goes, it supports a bias that has crossed everyone’s mind at some point: attractive females may more often than not find themselves attracting males from every inch of the earth. That said, second-guessing yourself never hurt anyone.
