Center for Behavioral Decision Research

CBDR : Seminar Series : Seminar by Coreen Farris

Sexual Misperception: Risk and Process

	presented by Coreen Farris (CMU - Social and Decision Sciences)


	Thursday, February 12	link to paper
	12pm
	PH 223D	link to Speaker's Site

	Abstract:

	Decoding sexual intent is an arguably difficult task, particularly if the perceiver hopes to decode intent early in an interaction. A woman may smile, sustain eye contact, increase physical proximity, or touch her partner to convey romantic or sexual interest. However, all of these cues are also used to convey simple warmth, friendliness or platonic interest. Given the ambiguity separating sexual interest from platonic interest, and the overlapping nonverbal cues used to signal each, it should come as no surprise that individuals often disagree about the meaning of nonverbal sexual signaling. In particular, men often disagree with women about the presence or degree of women’s sexual intent. The research I will present relies on process models, originally developed to understand simple perceptual and decisional processes, to suggest that (1) the gender difference in perception of sexual interest is due to a relative insensitivity among young men to the subtle cues that differentiate friendliness from sexual interest and is not due to a bias to perceive ambiguous cues as sexual, (2) men with a history of sexual violence are more likely to make sexual decoding errors relative to their non-aggressive peers and that these errors can also be attributed to sensitivity deficits, and (3) factors such as alcohol use and the clothing choices of women selectively interfere with social perception of sexual interest cues. The results provide information about the degree of risk conferred by situational factors and individual differences in perceptual processing of women’s interest cues and point to the promise of computational models of perception in increasing our understanding of clinically relevant social processes.

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