Wednesday February 6 5:36 PM ET 

Men Overestimate Women's Sexual Interest: Study
By E. J. Mundell

SAVANNAH, Georgia (Reuters Health) - Sorry guys, sometimes a smile is just 
a smile: new research suggests that men too often mistake women's everyday 
behavior as a sign of sexual interest.

The phenomenon seems connected to a kind of psychological self-projection, 
according to researcher Robyn LeBoeuf of Princeton University in New 
Jersey. ``They say, 'Well, if I were to smile at a woman, I would be 
interested in having sex with her. So if she's smiling at me, then she's 
probably interested in having sex with me as well.'''

What's more, the investigators found that this type of wishful thinking is 
most common among men whose sex life--or lack thereof--leaves much to be 
desired.

The findings were presented here Saturday at the annual meeting of the 
Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

In their study, LeBoeuf and co-researcher Leif Nelson had 285 adults read 
detailed descriptions of typical behaviors acted out by a man, a woman or 
the individual themselves. They then asked the study participants to rate, 
on a 7-point scale, just ``how likely it was that the person was 
interested in sex.''

The result? In most cases, ``men's ratings of how interested a woman would 
be were higher than both a woman's ratings of another woman, or of women's 
ratings of themselves.''

The findings are consistent with earlier studies conducted over 20 years 
ago using videotaped scenarios.

Indeed, psychologists have long known that men ''over-perceive'' women's 
sexual interest. Speaking with Reuters Health, Nelson said the most widely 
accepted theory for why this happens is one based on evolution. ``What men 
are trying to do is minimize costly (mating) errors--that is, missing an 
opportunity,'' he explained.

But evolutionary theory doesn't completely explain the phenomenon. A 
second theory hinges on self-projection, a state where our desires fool us 
into thinking that our own urges and behaviors are mirrored in others. 
Men's level of sexual over-perception might therefore rely on ``how much 
they think about sex themselves,'' Nelson said.

To test that theory, the Princeton team repeated their first experiment, 
but this time they had male participants answer questions beforehand such 
as ``How is your love life?'' to assess current levels of sexual 
satisfaction.

Not surprisingly, men who said their sex lives were in the doldrums 
``showed the exact same (over-perceiving) effect as we had measured 
before,'' according to Nelson.

On the other hand, those men who said they were ``totally sexually 
satisfied'' were found to be ``totally accurate--exactly right in how they 
judge women's sexual intent,'' he said.

The bottom line, the researchers suggest, is that when men aren't overly 
interested in sex themselves, they seem to be more objective--and 
accurate--in judging women's behaviors.

According to LeBoeuf, this still leaves women with the sad fact that a 
majority of men will see lust where none exists.

``Basically,'' she said, ``if a woman just goes out and stands anywhere, 
(some) men are going to think 'she's fairly interested in sex right 
now.'''

For their part, women ``just about always get the sexual intent of men 
right,'' LeBoeuf added, guessing correctly that when a man seems aroused, 
he probably is.

Women aren't 100% right when it comes to other male traits, however. 
Previous research has suggested that women tend to underestimate a man's 
level of romantic commitment. This too could have evolutionary roots, 
Nelson said, with women ``trying to avoid the costly error of seeing a man 
as committed when actually he's not.'' 

Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited