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Sexual Overperception Bias - Coggle Diagram
Sexual Overperception Bias
Theories & Biases
Parental Investment Theory (Trivers, 1972)
Female reproductive success dependent on high-quality & long-term partner
Eggs costly & limited
Pregnancy, childbirth, & lactation
Male reproductive success dependent on no. willing women
Sperm cheap & replenishable
Biases in Relationships (Haselton & Buss, 2000)
Based on parental investment theory
Women have commitment-scepticism bias
Underinfer commitment & doubt partner is as committed as want
From ancestral past hunter-gatherer where being single parent difficult
Men have sexual overperception bias
Sees sexual interest even in friendly interactions
Issue
Commitment-scepticism bias not studied
Women underrepresented in science & research!
Researcher Abbey
Founder of sexual overperception
But not evo psychologist (belives can be explained by social)
Men overperceive sexual interest in women
Error Management Theory (Haselton & Buss, 2000)
Predicts cognitive bias for men to overperceive sexual interest in women
Based on signal detection theory
Rooted in physics
Signal Detection Theory
Signal strength the no. cues that someone interested in you
Signal absent is someone being friendly
Signal present is some
Overlap makes difficult to distinguish is signal present or absent
Cues of friendliness & flirtation similar
Other intention & own response
Criterion the threshold for what perceive
But can move threshold
Intention & Own Response
Correct reject when friendly & perceive as friendly
Miss when flirting but perceived as friends
Hit when flirt & perceive as flirt
False alarm when friendly but perceive as flirt
Issue of Criterion
If don't want to see interest to avoid embarrasement
Make more misses
If want to see interest for romance
Make more false alarm errors
Link to Overperception Bias
Threshold more sensitive in men than women
Interpret more friendly as flirty
As more false alarm errors made it makes it a bias
As want most reproductive success
Sexual Perceptions
Sexual Overperception (Haselton & Buss, 2000)
Men overperceive sexual interest in women
Not w/out mating goals context
Perceive more women as being attracted means perceive more sexual partners for reproduction
But took no overperception bias as not wanting incest?????
Explanations
Evolutionary account
Social expectations
Evolutionary Account
Men need to be motivated to pursue any potential mating opportunity
To ensure reproductive success
Social Expectations
Patriarchy
Power relations
Gender stereotypes & expectations
Media
'Just-world hypothesis'
Just-World Hypothesis
If woman being perceived like that then they must be doing something
Scale (Haselton & Buss, 2000)
Self-report
Women rate behaviours as having lower sexual intent than males rate
Study: Core Study (Haselton, 2003)
M: Men & women report under & over perception
R: Gender differences
Men evenly report under & over
Women sig more report over than under
Research
Twitter
Speed-dating
Vignette
Study: Twitter (Webster et al., 2020)
A : Regret after sexual encounters
M: Data scraping
R: Gender diff in regret
Men more likely to be regret over one that got away (less experience than desired)
Women more likely to regret too much experience w. bad men
Data Scraping
Extract posts from social media as want
Analyse them w/out direct consent
Public posting is consent
Explanation & Parental Investment Theory
Men want more experience
Women want less experience w. the bad ones
Speed-Dating
Mating goal
Arousal
Attention
Study: Mating Goal (Perilloux et al., 2012)
M: Observed interaction of speed-dating, report back
R: More bias if woman attractive & man have short-term dating goal
Explanation in PIT
Want more sexual partners for reproduction
Study: Arousal (Bouffard & Milner, 2014)
R: More bias if man is aroused
Study: Attention (Rerick & Livingstone, 2022)
R: More bias if woman paying attention to him vs flirting w. other man
Explanation in PIT
Delusion of men
Studies Vignette
-
Study: Vignette (Benedixen et al., 2019)
M: Read story between man & woman with interaction of opposite gender to happen exactly as want
R: Report as more sexual in men than women
Study: Vignette (Haselton & Galperin, 2013)
Study: Vignette (Kohl & Robertson, 2014)
M: Write story between man & woman to happen exactly as want
R: Report as more sexual in men than women
Unbalance
Women vignette is casual meeting
Men vignette is meet in bar, dance together, she asks if want to go back
If is interest then classed as overperception
Study: Limitation of Vignette (Bradner et al., 2021)
A: EMT perception & truth in ratings & overperception
M: Make men & women read same & opposite gender vignette & report true (same sex)/false (opposite sex) ratings
R: Gender differences
Women EMT perception more far from truth
Male EMT perception closer to truth
Female misperception lower
Male misperception higher
Explanation (Bradner et al., 2000)
Diff scores can overinflate evidence for male overperception
Letting ppt read same-sex vignettes gives baseline
Men are accurate or may even be underperceiving
Vignettes change in strength to write for men & women
Want to prove theory right
Important
Women agree women vignettes more sexual
Men actually underperceive opposite sex when based on same sex baseline
Core Study (Abbey, 1982)
M: Ps observe confederate interaction & report if interaction friendly/flirty
R; Men reported as flirty, women reported as friendly
Abbey & female researchers convinced made interaction that mix but more flirty
Male researchers said was flirty from start
Core Study (Maner et al., 2005)
M: Neutral face & report expression, show romantic & horror, report neutral face expression after each
R: Priming change perceieved expression of neutral female face
When primed w. romantic men perceive sexual arousal
When primed w. horror perceive anger in black/Arabic
Critical Evaluation
Real-World Impact
Sexual harm
Sexual assault
Study: Sexual Harassment (Rauscher et al., 2023)
R: Gender imbalance
14% male workers sexually harasses at work
34.4% female workers sexually harassed at work
Study: Social Norms (Diehl et al., 2018)
R: Endorse hostile sexism
High sex drive & short-term motivated men more likely to endorse
Sexism Norms
Benevolent sexism
Hostile sexism
Benevolent
Put women on pedestal
Sexism result but come from good place
Hostile
Hate women
Sexism intended & results
Study: Social norms (Bendixen & Kennair, 2017)
R: Evolved diff in sexuality
Naturalistic Fallacy
Links to incel communities
If naturally evolved then must be good
Why fix
Is v. problematic
Replication Efforts
For Cultural Replication
Japan
Norway
Study: Japan (Hirashi et al., 2016)
M: Use Hasleton (2003) original survey
Study: Norway (Bendixen, 2014)
M: Use Hasleton (2003) original survey
Interesting
Norway ranked 3rd in gender egalitarianism in 2014
But still found overperception bias despite gender equality norms
Against Cultural Replication
French & Chilean
Swiss & Malaysian
Study: French & Chilean (Perilloux et al., 2015)
R: Overperception in French & Chilean men driven entirely by one item
Buying expensive items not common in culture so high men/women diff but cut & when re-anlysed had no overperception
Significance
Men & women read each other generally accurately
Study: Swiss & Malaysian (Goh et al., 2018)
A: Self-esteem manipulation
R: Negative mood cause underperception in Swiss but not Malaysian men
Significant
Cultural diff
Criticism: WEIRD Participants (Henrich et al., 2010)
French & Chilean not replicated older & convenient population but Japan & Norway younger
Less experience perceiving
Most students/researchers so educated & often industrialised
Social Norms
Norms drive overperception
But less likely to replicate after #MeToo (Bradner et al., 2021)
Norms
Traditional gender roles (Farris et al., 2008)
Aggressiveness (Edwards & Vogel, 2015)
Hostile sexism & porn use (Benedixen & Kennair, 2017)
Social Explanations
General oversexualisation hypothesis
Media hypothesis
Default model hypothesis
General Oversexualisation Hypothesis (Abbey, 1991)
Men raised to be sexual
Women raised to be coy
Media Hypothesis
Women unreceptive before changing mind (Abbey, 1991)
Based on perceived realism of sex in media (Baams et al., 2014)
Porn & Media
Aggression in porn for the less understanding may indicate that aggression & pushiness normal
Default Model Hypothesis (Shotland & Craig, 1988)
Men have higher sex drives on average
Assume women think same
Individual Difference Explanations
Mating goals
Attachment style
Mating Goals (Lenton & Bryan, 2007)
Overpercieve if have short-term mating goals & partner is similar
Attachment Style (Ruckel, 2022)
Type C anxious overperceive more than secure men
Type A avoidant overperceive less than secure men
Power (Popovich & Warren, 2014)
Physical, social, & societal power
On sexual strategies scale
Implications of Power
More men in positions of power than women
Increase risk-taking (Maner et al., 2007)
Increase self-esteem & assertiveness (Lammers & Stoker, 2019)
Implications on Sex
Overperceive sexual interest in opposite sex subordinates (Kuntsman & Maner, 2011)
Especially related w. sexual coercion (Bouffard & Millner, 2023)
Sexual Strategies Scale
Get person drunk/high
Tell person 'I love you'/other lies
Accuse other person of 'leading on'/'being a tease'
Way of women to goad men is to accuse of being gay if not have sex
Continue to touch/kiss person in case they give in
Continue asking if they want to have sex
Issues of EMT
Theoretical Issues (McKay et al., 2017)
Why evolve toward any error at all & if does would be socially catered to
When assumptions relaxed & context put into place as going after wrong woman means implications on social standing
Women in nightclub having enjoyable time, does unattractive man approach them & if does why
Knows not attractive
Knows women likely not interested
Knows in this day & age men must approach women
Counteracting thought is what left to lose
Is not bias in thinking, is just mentality
Explanation (McKay & Efferson, 2010)
Own expectations affect us in each situation
Bias in behaviour not necessarily imply bias in cognition
No diff in model where man biased & men not biased
So if expectation men approach will do so anyway
Ultimate vs Proximate Mechanisms (Zietsch et al., 2020)
Ultimate mechanism is the why something happens
Missed chance of mating
Proximate mechanism is how something happen
Evolved cognitive bias or social effects
Good evolutionary theories marry proximate to ultimate mechanisms
Sociosexual Orientation Debate (Penke & Asendopf, 2008)
Move away from cog bias in field
Men have higher sex drives & more interested in casual sex than women
On scale
Acceptability of casual sexual relationship
Attitudes to casual sexual relationship
Fantasising about sex w. someone have no committed romantic relationship w.
Sociosexuality Measures (Samara et al., 2021)
Men score higher on sociosexuality measures than women
This relate to overperception
Is more replicable of a theory
Explanation (Howell et al., 2012)
Men evolved to have this for more mates
SOI & Gender (Lee et al., 2020)
SOI above gender
Women can also overperceive men if high in SOI
High SOI/more casual sex seem to overperceive more
Assumption (Zietsch et al., 2020)
Issue assuming others think like we do is general purpose error
If live in more sexual world, assume other people also do
Phobias
One bad experience means learned association for life
SOI diverse array
Study: Ultimate vs Proximate (Zietsch et al., 2020)
Conjunction fallacy problem
Show who ignore probability to say other interested
Study: Conjunction Fallacy (Bellamy & McKay)
M: Men & women rate man & woman smiling as wanting chat & wanting chat w. sexual interest
R: Lower overperception than expected
12% men assume sexual interest
Significance
Lower men assumption that EMT suggest
But 12% still problematic in real world
Limitation
Smiling is simple cue
May need to be stronger
Issues in Measuring Concepts in Dating Behaviours Scale
Heteronormative
Gendered
Westernised
Outdated
Fix in Reporting (Perilloux & Kurzban, 2015)
Belief in field women underreport own intent
Qs about buying roses repeated
For self & typical woman
Seen as purer than foul effect
May be competitive tactic
May be self-serving bias
Limitation
Order effects
Realistic environment
Realistic Environments (Bendixen et al., 2019)
R: Environment w. casual relationships women do make selves known
About society not underreporting
Order Effects (Murray et al., 2017)
A: Always ask questions same way around
M: Replicated survey but switched order
R: Women not as concerned w. own status
Buying Roses
How likely are to have sex w. someone who bought you roses
How likely is typical women to have sex w. someone who has bought her roses
How likely is typical man to have sex w. someone who has bought him roses