INTERPRETING BEHAVIORS IN MIXED-GENDER ENCOUNTERS - EFFECTS OF SOCIAL ANXIETY AND GENDER

Although research over the past decade has consistently shown that men impute more sexual meaning to behaviors than women, recent studies have suggested that this effect is qualified by attitudinal variables, such as attitudes toward women. Certain dispositional variables, such as social anxiety, also seem relevant in affecting men's and women's perceptions. According to the cognitive-attentional model of social anxiety, socially anxious individuals engage in ''anxious self-preoccupation'' that makes them less sensitive to social cues. Socially anxious and nonanxious men and women rated their perceptions of the sexual connotativeness of 27 male and female target behaviors. Socially anxious men perceived the behaviors more sexually than either nonanxious men or socially anxious women. Furthermore, women high in social anxiety attached less sexual meaning to the behaviors than low socially anxious women. The implications of these effects for dating relationships are discussed.