Rejection From Attractive Women

Tweet

If you’re a woman, you’ve probably been in a situation where you had to reject an advancing man, especially in the bar or at a party (or every party) in college. Many women also probably experienced the same man making continual un-welcomed advances even after explicitly being told to stay away. Unfortunately, in some cases, this could even turn to rape as the man continues to ignore these rejection cues. So what separates a man who understands when to lay off and one who doesn’t? New research from the University of Iowa attempts to find out.

University of Iowa researcher Teresa Treat had 232 male participants (19 years old on average) complete questionnaires about their relationship history and their endorsement of sexually aggressive attitudes. The men then looked at full-body photos of models who varied in attractiveness, attire, and whether they were expressing interest. A short time later, they were asked to look at the photos again, some of which were of the same models expressing the opposite cue of sexual interest. The photos were previously extensively rated by different study participants (male and female) to measure the model’s attractiveness, provocativeness of dress, and level of sexual interest or rejection.

Treat found that overall, men were pretty good at recalling a woman’s interest or rejection. These college-aged men were especially good at remembering a woman who was attractive, dressed provocatively, and showing interest.

However, Treat also found that men who have a history of frequent serious relationship were better at recalling the correct cues than men who haven’t been in as many serious relationships. More disturbing, Treat found men who scored higher on the sexual aggression survey were much worse at remembering the correct cue than men who scored lower. Treat explains her results as follows:

“Tracking and remembering a partner’s emotions may play a role in the initiation and maintenance of a serious romantic relationship,” explains Treat. “Likewise, misremembering a woman’s level of sexual interest could prompt some men to make unwanted sexual advances and become frustrated when a woman doesn’t respond as anticipated.”

Keep in mind that these results are correlational, and do not explain why men who are in serious relationships are better at reading cues and why men who score higher on sexual aggression are worse. In addition, this study was based on only photographic information. Treat plans to learn whether these results will be replicated with real world audio and visual information.

Nevertheless, these results have serious implications to continual study of sexual aggression and preventing it.

“Finding that risk for sexual aggression is associated with processing patterns in no way minimizes the responsibility of potential perpetrators to attend to potential victims’ interest levels and consent cues,” Treat says. “But if we can better understand how women’s cues might be misinterpreted, we’ll be better able to address the difficulties of some young men that can result in such negative consequences.”

Have you ever been continuously approached by a man who didn’t seem to understand you were not interested? What did you do?

Recommended books (downloadable pdfs):

Alphahot1 - Seduction Trends Going After Beatiful Women
Phil Anderson - Creating An Attractive Identity

Labels: women love women  cheesy pick up lines  country singles online dating  telegraph online dating  the pickup artist ebook  chessey pick up lines  advice on internet dating  dr richard bandler  non verbal communication theory  being an alpha male  norm li  become a pua