SAVVY!

Gender Differences in Perceptions of Sexual Intent: A Qualitative Review and Integration (Summarized)

Kristen P. Lindgren, Michele R. Parkhill, William H. George, and Christian S. Hendershot

The article discusses findings of various studies dealing with gender differences in perceptions of sexual intent. There are socio-cultural concerns over the belief that flirting by a woman is indicative of interest in sexual activity. Does a woman with a reputation of being flirtatious imply that she is probably interested in sexual activity? This belief is important to know about gender differences in sexual intent perceptions.

The first ever sexual intent study was done by Abbey in 1982. In this study the unacquainted female and male interactants were given the task of getting to know one another in a five minute conversation. During this interaction another male and female were observing and had the task of rating the interaction. Abbey’s hypothesis was “men as compared to women, perceive more sexuality in female targets.” After the session, both the raters and the interactants gave estimates of the target’s (woman) behavior. The study found that male raters and interactants perceived higher sexual intent from the female than did the female rater and interactant. Males also saw more sexual intent in the male than did females. Abbey concluded that males have a general bias toward an over perception of sexual behaviors, and this was not limited to female targets. Studies support that more sexually coercive men attribute more sexual intent behind women’s behavior than do non-coercive men. Moreover, women with a history of sexual victimization report being misperceived by a man more often, and men with a history of sexual perpetration report misperceiving a women’s friendliness more often.

In another study done in 1993 by Kowalski, participants were asked to imagine different behavioral scenarios occurring on a date and estimate the degree of interest in having sex such behaviors reflected, or “assessing each behavior’s sexual connotativeness.” From these ratings two sets of ratings were made. One was the female targets engaging in the behaviors and the other was the male targets engaging in the behavior. The male ratings of females were higher than women’s for females were for 20/27 behaviors. The male ratings of other males were higher than women’s for males for 12/27 behaviors. There was no gender difference in ratings for 13 of the 27 behaviors. From these, three factors emerged: mundane, romantic and sexual behaviors. Mundane behaviors are those commonly identified in literature as being either platonic affection or romantic or sexual intentions; for example, maintaining eye contact or giving compliments. These types of behaviors were the most different in gender ratings. Overtly sexual behaviors had the least difference in gender ratings. Men and women perceive friendly and seductive behavior similarly; these behaviors are the ones that show the most gender difference in perceptions. Additionally, some studies found that women judged less sexual intent in male interactions than the males did in their own behavior, illustrating the incongruence in gender perceptions of sexual intent.

Another important factor to consider is the situational influence of alcohol on perceptions of sexual intent. Multiple studies found that both “male and female raters perceived a drinking female target as more sexual, sexually available, and willing to engage in foreplay and sexual intercourse than a non-drinking target.” There are also alcohol expectancies and stereotypes about drinking that perpetuate this perception. However, even “being interested in pursuing sex or perceiving someone as interested in pursuing sex is not synonymous with agreeing to or consenting to engage in sex.” Do people view these two ideas as distinct?

Some explanations for gender differences in perception of sexual intent are described in the article encompassed by proximal, or immediate causes as well as distal, or ultimate causes. The proximal causes include social-information processing, social skills deficits and self presentation. Social-information processing is how an individual encodes information from a situation, interpret it and behave in that situation. It is believed that men as compared to women have a lower perceptual threshold for labeling behaviors as sexual. Because men and women’s thresholds are different, their labeling of behavior as sexual is also different. For example, if a man and woman both view the same behavior of a target which is actually 20% sexual in nature, the man with his lower threshold will see any display of 10% behavior as indicative of sexual interest, whereas the woman with her higher threshold will need it to be at least 30% to judge the behavior as sexual interest. So the man views the 20% as sexual interest, whereas the woman does not. Another study found that sexual interpretations may be automatically activated and more rapidly so in men. This means that in men the concept of sex would activate rapidly, creating a perception of a higher percentage of sexual interest in female targets’ behavior and men would therefore label her as sexually interested. On the contrary, women’s concept of sex would develop more slowly, making them perceive sexual behavior at a lower percentage and they would not label the target as sexually interested. A final aspect of social-information processing to consider is sexualized schemata. Men have more sexualized expectations in general and more sexualized schemas about women. Events and behaviors used to indicate both friendly and sexual intentions are likely interpreted as it confirms to a sexualized schema. Then these events and behaviors that fit the schema are better remembered than those that do not. Men perceive mundane behaviors as more sexual than do women. Another explanation offered is that of social skills. The article states that men are less socially skilled than women and social skills are negatively related to the ratings of female targets’ sexual intentions. Finally, self-presentation is suggested as an explanation for differences in perception of sexual intent, however, there was not satisfactory evidence of gender differences based on this.

The distal causes of gender differences in perception of sexual intent are socialization, evolutionary psychology and biology. Socialization is the cultural expectations that dictate that men should initiate sexual encounters and be “‘forceful, aggressive and dominant’ lovers”. Evolutionary psychology believes that men and women differ in assessing sexual intentions because they differ in their natural selection pressures. From an evolutionary standpoint, men do not have to make a parental investment to pass on their genes; therefore there are advantages to having many mates. It is less costly in men’s genetic fitness to have a bias in perceiving women as more sexually interested than it is for them to view them as less so. Biology views gender differences in their baseline sexual arousal as accounting for differences in sexual perceptions. Men have a higher baseline level linked to “sexually related social perceptions.” Men assume women have similar “sexual appetites” and project their desires onto women. Biology also suggests testosterone may be a mechanism for this difference as free testosterone increases over baseline when a man socially interacts with a woman.

The article covers findings of various studies dealing with gender differences in perceptions of sexual intent. It gives us information on possible causes of the differences in men and women’s perceptions of sexual intent. However, the article does not take a stance on how harmful these misperceptions can be. Does a woman with a reputation of being flirtatious imply that she is probably interested in sexual activity? The belief that flirting by a woman is indicative of interest in sexual activity perpetuates such misperceptions and can lead to unwanted sexual advances or even sexual assault. What can we do to ensure our perceptions of others’ behaviors are accurate?