Psychological correlates of perception of sexual intent in women

In a sample of 183 men and 186 women, the authors assessed (a) the relative contributions of gender and level of nonverbal social cues to the percepti on of a female actor's sexual intent during a videotaped social interaction with a man and (b) the association between those variables and personality traits implicated in faulty sexual-information processing. The authors ass essed those variables while the participants viewed I of 3 film segments de picting a female-mate interaction. The authors experimentally manipulated e ye contact, touch, physical proximity, and female clothing. At all levels o f those nonverbal cues, the men perceived more sexual intent in the female actor than did the women. The perception of the female actor's sexual inten t increased as the nonverbal cues in the film segments were magnified: Both actors displayed more eye contact, touch, and physical proximity, and the female actor wore more revealing clothing. Relative to the women, the men d emonstrated greater sexual preoccupation and reduced sociosexual. effective ness, variables associated with inferring greater sexual intent in the fema le actor.