Can Men and Women Differentiate Between Friendly and Sexually Interested Behavior?

Research indicates that males perceive people to be more interested in sex than do women and are less able than women to differentiate among liking, love, and sexual involvement. Does this mean, as Abbey (1982) hypothesized, that males cannot differentiate between friendly and sexually interested behavior? Videotapes were prepared of five couples, each showing a male and a female behaving in either a friendly or a sexually interested fashion. The design was 2 (sex of subject) x 2 (male intent) x 2 (female intent) x 2 (sex of actor), with sex of actor as a within-subject factor. The data were analyzed by means of a MANOVA. Results of subjects' ratings of videotapes indicate that 1) males perceive both males and females as having more sexual interest than do females, and 2) both males and females differentiate between friendly and interested behavior. We concluded that 1) males and females have different thresholds for the perception of sexual intent, and 2) members of either sex can make errors, depending upon their perceptual threshold and the emotivity of the actors. The gender difference in the perception of sexual intent is thought to result from the male's greater sexual appetite, which the male uses as a model for the attribution of the appetites of others.