1. Observer Participants
Third-Party Observer Accuracy and Bias in Estimating Target Dating Interest and Physical Attraction Jeffrey A. Hall & Chong Xing
INTRODUCTION
RESULTS
Specific Aim:
What is the association between third-party estimates of targets’ physical attraction and dating interest and target’s actual attraction and interest?
One of the most important goals of the early stages of courtship is accurately perceiving the romantic interest and physical attraction of potential partners
But, face threats (i.e., rejection) and gender roles constrain honest presentation of attraction and interest, particularly for women
Evolutionary Predictions
Grammer and colleagues (Grammer et al., 1997; Grammer et al., 2000) suggest female behavior is protean in courtship: adaptively unpredictable, neither too subtle nor too obvious, with the overall goal of masking true intentions
Important moderator: when females get the information necessary for decoding a male’s intentions, her behavior will become clearer
Traditional Sexual Script Predictions
Males will be perceived as more physically attracted and less interested in dating
Female interest will be more difficult to read as she becomes more attracted to and interested in a man due to face threats (i.e., promiscuous) and physical threats (i.e., danger of the man becoming aggressive)
Red squares are target female actual interest/attraction; Orange trend line female target interest/attraction observer estimates
Purple dots are target male actual interest/attraction; Blue trend line male target interest/attraction observer estimates
MLMs were constructed using targets actual interest/attraction as a Level 2 predictor of Level 1 observer estimates
Linear sex and interest/attraction terms added first; second step interaction term; third step curvilinear interest/attraction term
Based on nested model comparison tests, curvilinear best fit to data for dating interest, linear interaction best for physical attraction
Moderation analysis: female perceived partner interest interaction with female target actual interest was significant
But, when male partner was perceived to be more interested and female targets were most interested, female targets were least interpretable
METHODS
Target Participants
98 pairs of opposite sex strangers who were heterosexual and single
Each person video and audio recorded during interactions
Self-reported physical attraction to partner ( = .90) (McCroskey & McCain, 1974); interest in dating ( = .86) (Grammer et al., 2000); estimate of his or her conversational partner’s dating interest ( = .80)
1-minute video clips were taken from minutes 7-10 of interaction
Observer Participants
201 participants (51% female); same age as target participants
Watched 10 randomly selected interactions of 98; 5 male targets, 5 female targets – only could see target, not target’s conversation partner
Estimated physical attraction to partner (1-7 scale) & interest in dating partner (1-7 scale)
Analysis Plan
N = 1,858 observations stacked within targets
Each target observed between times (M = 18.9, mode = 17)
Multi-level modeling used to control for non-independence of observations
25% and 23% of the variation of estimates of attraction and dating interest were between targets
All estimates controlled for target characteristics (race/ethnicity, age) and observer characteristics (race/ethnicity, age, sexuality, acquaintance with target, study suspicion)
CONCLUSIONS
Overall
Third-party observers were way off (nearly 2 points on 7 pt scale) in estimating interest & attraction, typically under-estimating
At low levels of actual attraction and interest both male and female targets are more accurately estimated by third-party observers
Evolutionary Explanation
Males are more readable particularly at higher levels of attraction, and women are less readable at higher levels of attraction and interest
No support for the particular mechanism of protean displays (Grammer et al., 1997): as females perceived more interest from men, they were not more readable
The least readable targets was a woman who was attracted to her conversational partner and perceived her partner as being highly interested too
Traditional Sexual Script Explanation
Targets did not differ by sex in their interest or attraction in one another (no target bias)
Observers were not consistently biased in their estimates of attraction and interest based on target gender
Results are consistent with explanation that when women are interested in male partners they become more likely to mask interest
Limitations
Were clips sufficient in length to judge attraction and interest? Where 1 item measures for observers sufficient for judging interest and attraction?
Were 10 minutes enough time to judge protean behaviors (they were for Grammer et al., 2000)
Accurately judging flirting is hard!