Study: Women Hard to Read
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James Joyner | Thursday, February 5, 2009 |
Now, here’s a study I hope wasn’t funded by our tax dollars:
Researchers at Indiana University showed video clips from 24 different speed dates and asked male and female participants two simple questions: “Do you think the man was interested in this woman?” and “Do you think the woman was interested in this man?” Their answers were then compared with the responses of the speed daters themselves.
The results, published in the January issue of the journal Psychological Science, show that both men and women are able to gauge a man’s interest in a woman, but are equally baffled when it comes to figuring out if a woman is interested in a man. In fact, a flip of a coin would be almost as accurate in predicting a woman’s romantic interest on a date.
Skyler S. Place, who headed up the study, says that the biological drive behind dating – finding an optimal mate for gene promotion – gives women reason to be elusive. “Being coy forces the men to spend more time interacting with the woman, because they are unsure if they have successfully courted her,” Place said. “Therefore, the woman has more time to gather information about her date.” Ultimately, women have more at stake while dating because they face higher “sunk costs” – a woman can carry the child of only one man at a time, while a man can impregnate many women.
Plus, the chances are much greater than 50-50 that a man in a dating scenario is interested in the woman.
Photo by Flickr user cromocom, used under Creative Commons license.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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