Citation

Lee AJ, Sidari MJ, Murphy SC, Sherlock JM, Zietsch BP. Psychol. Sci. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Centre for Psychology and Evolution, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Association for Psychological Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1177/0956797619900315

PMID

31971873

Abstract

Sex differences in misperceptions of sexual interest have been well documented; however, it is unclear whether this cognitive bias could be explained by other factors. In the current study, 1,226 participants (586 men, 640 women) participated in a speed-dating task in which they rated their sexual interest in each other as well as the sexual interest they perceived from their partners. Consistent with previous findings, results showed that men tended to overperceive sexual interest from their partners, whereas women tended to underperceive sexual interest. However, this sex difference became negligible when we considered potential mediators, such as the raters' sociosexual orientation and raters' tendency to project their own levels of sexual interest onto their partners. These findings challenge the popular notion that sex differences in misperceptions of sexual interest have evolved as a specialized adaptation to different selection pressures in men and women.

Language: en

Keywords

attraction; error-management theory; mean-level bias; open data; sociosexual orientation; speed dating; tracking accuracy