Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder,and So Is Intent: Men's Interpretations of the Sexual Intent of Attractive Versus Unattractive Women

Abstract

Sexual interest is often communicated in nonverbal and indirect ways, creating opportunities for sexual miscommunication. Specifically, miscommunication in which a man is overinferring the sexual interest of a woman is especially common. This type of miscommunication is linked to sexual harassment, sexual assault, and acquaintance rape. Evolutionary psychologists have explained men's bias toward interpreting women as sexually available as an adaptive reproductive mechanism. Men are motivated to perceive a woman's intent or sexual interest as favorable to themselves, which yields the greatest reproductive rewards. This study investigated whether manipulating attractiveness without the known sexual signals from past research is enough to increase perceived sexual intent in women's behaviors. In addition, this study also manipulated the target of women's behaviors. A community sample of men evaluated the sexual intent behind 25 behaviors performed either by an attractive or unattractive woman, which was manipulated using two pretested photos of differential attractiveness. Hypothetical behaviors were performed by these women either toward the men themselves or another man. Mediation analyses indicated that manipulating attractiveness indirectly increases perceptions of sexual intent through the mechanism of increased sexual arousal, but only when the target of the behavior was the men themselves. These results fit into the motivated perception framework, as interpreting more attractive women as more sexually available compared to unattractive women is reproductively advantageous for men.