Men "clueless" at reading sexual interest from wom

[The Grim Squeaker]

Clueless Guys Can't Read Women

Research finds that guys have trouble reading non-verbal cues and often mistake a friendly smile to mean sexual interest.
More often than not, guys interpret even friendly cues, such as a subtle smile from a gal, as a sexual come-on, and a new study discovers why: Guys are clueless.

More precisely, they are somewhat oblivious to the emotional subtleties of non-verbal cues, according to a new study of college students.

"Young men just find it difficult to tell the difference between women who are being friendly and women who are interested in something more," said lead researcher Coreen Farris of Indiana University's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

This "lost in translation" phenomenon plays out in the real world, with about 70 percent of college women reporting an experience in which a guy mistook her friendliness for a sexual come-on, Farris said.

Some might think the results come down to "boys being boys," and so even the slightest female interest sparks sexual fantasy. But the study, to be detailed in the April issue of the journal Psychological Science, also found that it goes both ways for guys — they mistake females' sexual signals as friendly ones. The researchers suggest guys have trouble noticing and interpreting the subtleties of non-verbal cues, in either direction.

The study's funding came from the National Institutes of Mental Health and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

To unravel it all, Farris and her colleagues examined non-verbal communication in a group of 280 undergraduates, both men and women with an average age of 20 years old.

The students viewed images of women on a computer screen and had to categorize each as friendly, sexually interested, sad or rejecting. Each student reported on 280 photographs, which had been sorted previously into one of the categories based on surveys completed by different groups of students.

Overall, women categorized more images correctly than men did. When it came to friendly gestures, men were more likely than women to interpret these to mean sexual interest.

More surprising, the researchers found guys were also confused by sexual cues. When images of gals meant to show allure flashed onto the screen, male students mistook the allure as amicable signals.

So ladies trying to brush off a guy at work or the gym may need to be, uh, more direct. Men in the study also had more trouble than women distinguishing between sadness and rejection.

The results help to tease out the underlying causes of guys' flirt-or-not mistakes. One common explanation for reports of men taking a friendly gesture as "she wants me," is based on men's inherent interest in sex, which is thought to result from their biology as well as their upbringing.

Following this idea, men and women would be aware of the same behavioral cues, but men would have a lower threshold for what qualifies as sexual interest. In contrast, women would wait for compelling evidence before labeling a behavior as sexual interest.

However, Farris and her colleagues didn't find this to be the case. Rather than seeing the world through sex-colored glasses, men seemed just to have blurry vision of sorts, overall. For instance, the college guys sometimes mistook sexual advances as pal-like gestures.

"I would say that there are many factors that could relate to men demonstrating insensitivity to women's subtle non-verbal cues," said Pamela McAuslan, associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, who was not involved in the current study. These factors would include socialization, gender roles and gender stereotypes, she said.

For instance, "women are supposed to be the communicators, concerned with relationships and others ... men are supposed to be less concerned with communication and to be constantly alert for sexual opportunities," McAuslan said. "This could mean that men in general may be less sensitive to subtle non-verbal behavior than women."

That doesn't mean such men can't learn to read cues or that all men are clueless decoders of women's gestures.

"These are average differences. Some men are very skilled at reading affective cues," Farris told LiveScience, "and some women find the task challenging."

Well, that explains (Increased "Male" neurological traits) that, as they say. Interesting to have this proven, and that it's general reading, not just sexual interest.

[Superman]

Most men are clueless about women? I, sir, am shocked.

It's like the old joke about the woman who tries to brush the guy off by saying, "I have to wash my hair." The guy answers with, "what about the next day?"

Most guys seem to communicate directly, and women through more indirect means.

[Setesh]

They really need to do a study to see if women can pick up these 'non-verbal' clues off other women. I bet on the really 'subtle' things they can't either. I spent a week working the door at a lesbian bar and from what I saw they can't tell either.

Part of this also may be location of origin. People from widely differant areas do have slight differences in body language. Also they did this study on college age men 17-25 age bracket, when testosterone poisoning is at its worst, so sex is 'on the brain' as they say. Women don't hit that stage till much later in life on average.

[cosmicalstorm]

Could images be enough to communicate such subtle things as human body language?
I my opinion you need to watch someone move, watch how their eyes move, see how they react to the things you say and so on, to be able to draw any serious conclusions about their intent.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I really can't stand this beating around the bushes bullshit. Pretty much all of the girls I've been with have been very forward and direct, because I don't want to go out with someone who can't just say "No" without making a bloody drama over it. Life's too short.

[Zixinus]

This does make the fact that "man are from mars, women are from venus"-type books selling like candy a lot more understandable.

[Justforfun000]

Of course this study puts the blame on the male for being clueless, but that's begging the question that the women are actually being CLEAR enough and not confusing in their signals. It could be that women are at fault and they simply send off a variety of mixed signals that anyone find difficult to judge objectively. Someone pointing out the situation involving lesbians above seems to indicate that.

[Covenant]

I wouldn't say it puts the blame on men. It makes it clear that men are just not equipped with the same degree of sensitivity to the signals. Blaming the guy for not knowing what you're saying, in this case, isn't honest--since he honestly doesn't know what you're doing. If anything, the article puts the onus on women more, by telling them quite directly "If you want him to know what you're saying, say it directly instead of being coy." Which has always been good advice.

[Junghalli]

Well, that describes me to a T anyway. I have absolutely no clue how to tell whether a woman is interested in me or not.

[Dark Flame]

I thought it was putting the blame on men, too. But, like others have said, there are women who can't catch that stuff too.

I think it's more often a case of the person giving the signals thinking that they are clear as day because they know that they're there. To someone else it's not that clear.

So pretty much what Justforfun said.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Considering the number of woman I've had ask me why the hell women are so hard to understand, I believe the problem isn't limited to just males.

[Knife]

Well, we just had a big old debate about autism people and their 'language'. Same thing applies, it takes two people to communicate. If on isn't getting the language because they don't understand the language, the language is pretty fucking worthless.

[Gullible Jones]

Doubtless brain architecture matters, but I wonder if part of the problem is that men are trained to expect too much subtlety, and end up reading more than they should into facial expressions and whatnot. I just recall that, when I started high school, I might give a lot of thought to a smile from a girl I liked; whereas later on I would just take it as a friendly smile, instead of trying to read something "deeper" into it.

[Exonerate]

Better to get more false positives than miss out on chances to mate. Girl smiles at you - maybe she's just being friendly, maybe she's interested in something more. If you get rejected, big deal, but if not, you get a chance to pass on your genes. It's a low risk-high reward scenario, makes evolutionary sense.