Journal 2 psych Essays

Submitted By Michael-May
Words: 1050
Pages: 5

Michael May
Psychology 1010-121483
Journal 2
March 26, 2015

Journal 2 In the article, “Psychological Correlates of Perception of Sexual Intent in Women” published by Eric Koukounas, and Nicole M. Letch, they are studying the way women act towards men, and how men perceive their actions. They do this study by starting out, and having 183 and 186 women. The participants are to watch a short clip, with a man and a woman interacting. The authors of this experiment were focused on the eye contact, touch, physical closeness, and the female clothing, so he manipulated these variables. At each level of the nonverbal stage, men perceived more sexual intent did than the women with the non-verbal cues. When the nonverbal cues would start to increase and the clothing is more revealing, the women showed more interest in sexual intent. Sexual interest is displayed differently for both sexes. When two people are sexually interested in each other, these people will give off some type of cue. We communicate our intent through verbal, or nonverbal cues. Investigators have found out that nonverbal cues are more frequent than verbal cues between a man and a woman interested in sexual activity (Muehlen-hard, Koralewski, Andrews, & Burdick, 1986). Mostly, people will use nonverbal ways of communicating their sexual interest in one another. Sometimes, these ways of communicating sexual intent may be taken the wrong way, which is when sexual harassment and rape could happen.
While doing this experiment, there are variables you have to be aware of. One would be the sexual ineffectiveness. This is where someone is unable to determine the sexual intent being displayed. This type of person is not confident, and comfortable in sexual situations. Sociosexual effectiveness is the opposite, and refers to people who are comfortable and confidence in sexual situations (Quackenbush, 1989). Another variable while conducting this experiment will be someone who deals with sexual preoccupation. This is when their thoughts are all about sex, and they get obsessed with sex (Snell & Papini, 1989). The experimenters also looked at if the participants had a sexual partner already, or if they attended coeducational schools. Gender is also an important variable. Sometimes men see women as coming off as flirtatious when really they are just being friendly (Abbey, 1982). During the beginning of the session, the testers had to complete a questionnaire. They were asked their type of sexual information, for example their age, gender and sexual orientation. The experimenters were measured on a scale there social sexual effectiveness, and sexual preoccupation. Next, they were asked about their sexual personality, meaning masculine or feminine. Individuals would view a video by their self. This video would show a man and woman having a conversation. There will be three different scenes of these two people talking. All the participants have to do is to rate the sexual intent of both actors. Each video is one minute long. The male actor would wear jeans, and a black tee shirt for each scenario. As for the woman in the video, each scene she would wear something more reveling. The first scene she would wear jeans and a turtleneck, and by the third scene she would show her cleavage, and a short skirt (Koukounas, & Letch 2001). At the end, the results showed that the men scored higher on sexual preoccupation, while not scoring so high on the sociosexual effectiveness (Koukounas, & Letch 2001). Gender does a play a big part when processing information based on sexual intent. The men seemed to see the situation as sexual, even when the woman had no sexual intent towards the man. Women who engage in lots of eye contact, and touching give men the idea of sexual intent. Instead of men and women trying to figure out if they are sexually interested in one another by using nonverbal cues, communicating properly is the best way to avoid any problems. The experiment showed a few