Men's memory for women's sexual-interest and rejection cues

Summary: The current work characterizes young men’s memory for young women’s heterosocially relevant affective cues (e.g. sexual interest and rejection) and examines characteristics of both the woman being perceived and the male perceiver as predictors of memory. Undergraduate men (n ¼232) completed similarity-ratings and recognition-memory tasks with photos of undergraduate women who varied in attractiveness, provocativeness of clothing and expression of sexual interest. Participants also completed a control memory task and a measure relevant to the risk of exhibiting sexually aggressive behaviour, as well as indicating how many serious relationships they had experienced. Multilevel regression techniques revealed that (a) men’s memory for women’s sexual interest improved when women were sexually interested at encoding, attractive and dressed provocatively; (b) men who reported more frequent serious relationships showed better memory for women’s sexual interest and (c) men at risk of exhibiting sexually aggressive behaviour showed worse memory for women’s sexual interest. Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Men’s memory for women’s heterosocially relevant affect (e.g. sexual interest and rejection) is a surprisingly understudied area of inquiry, given the hypothesized centrality of affective processing to social interactions, intimate relationships and sexual aggression among acquaintances (e.g. Abbey, McAuslan, & Ross, 1998; Casey, Garrett, Brackett, & Rivers, 2007; Mayer, Roberts, & Barsade, 2008; McFall, 1990). Nonverbal affective cues, particularly sexual-interest and rejection cues, frequently are used to communicate to a current or potential partner the likelihood that initial or continued sexual overtures will be received positively (e.g. Abbey, 1982; Fichten, Tagalakis, Judd, Wright, & Amsel, 1992; Muehlenhard, Koralewski, Andrews, & Burdick, 1986). Heterosocial competence requires not only accurate perception of these affective cues, however, but also recognition of changes in the cues, such as from positive to negative. Memory provides critical support for successful change detection, via adequate storage and retrieval of affective information. Successful initiation and maintenance of serious romantic relationships, for example, necessitate detection and retention of the fluctuations in a partner’s emotions. Moreover, decreased attention and sensitivity to young women’s affective cues have been linked to an increased risk of sexually coercive or aggressive behaviour towards acquaintances among college-aged males (see review by Farris, Treat, Viken, & McFall, 2008). Above and beyond impoverished encoding of women’s affect, however, insufficient storage or retrieval of women’s affective cues may decrease the likelihood that high-risk men recognize and respond appropriately to women’s changing affect. In sum, careful characterization of the correlates of memory for young women’s sexual interest may advance our understanding of the role of affective processing in both normative and problematic heterosocial interactions. The present work uses multilevel modelling techniques to distinguish two classes of influences on men’s memory: