Saturday, June 07, 2014

The self delusion we all knew about

This study is a very scientific approach to something I think we all knew was true.  Men are more likely to misinterpret women's behavior as flirting with them than vice versa.   And people of both genders who score high on sociosexuality inventory (more interested in casual relationships) do the same.

What might be new is that the sociosexuality inventory score was the dominant piece.  Men just happen to score higher on this than women do.  Of course, the study can't say whether the gender difference is innate, cultural, or the complicated interaction I talked about last week. But what is great about the study is that it does suggest that the biology of gender is not as big an influence on flirting self-delusion than the psychology.  Women can be just as self-delusional flirters as men.  Another example of the demographics v psychographics that I talked about last week