Flirtation Rejection Strategies: Toward an Understanding of Communicative Disinterest in Flirting.

Introduction Flirtation can be an efficacious pathway to a number of prosocial outcomes, including progressive communication, romantic interest, and sexual encounters, and is a common practice among college students to achieve these goals (Beck, Clabaugh, Clark, Kosovski, Daar, Hefner, et al., 2007). However, flirtatious communication is oftentimes unsuccessful because of unexpected or unwanted communication attempts (Keyton & Rhodes, 1999; Lannutti & Camero, 2007). When not desired by recipients, their actions often hinder the success of such potential interactions. Moreover, because unwanted flirting has serious consequences such as perceived sexual harassment or obsessive relational intrusion (Cupach & Spitzberg, 2004; Keyton & Rhodes), flitters may be well-advised to remain perceptive of rejection to avoid such predatory outcomes. Indeed, men view flirting as more sexual than women and perceive rejection as less potent (Henningsen, 2004; Moore, 2002). The purpose of this study, then, was to understand college students' communicative and behavioral rejections toward unwanted flirtation. Flirtation and Rejection Flirting behaviors may be largely idiosyncratic, yet most individuals share some commonalties when engaging in courtship behaviors. Fundamentally, flirting is a form of self-promotion (Rodgers & Veronsky, 1999), which can occur both verbally and nonverbally. Research suggests sex differences exist with both nonverbal behaviors (e.g., Abbey & Melby, 1986; Koeppel, Montagne, O'Hair, & Cody, 1992; Moore, 1985) and verbal expressions (e.g., Levine, King, & Popoola, 1994). For example, women may engage in behaviors such as giggling, licking lips, and tossing hair, while men may arch their backs, flex their muscles, and stiffen their stance (Rodgers & Veronsky). Although these behaviors may be seen as stereotypical behaviors, men and women engage in self-promotion or flirtation differently considering the different physical features and cultural norms regarding the sexes. For example, men usually do not have long hair to toss nor is it normative, so consequently, there are sex differences in this nonverbal flirtation behavior. Less research has focused on the verbal facets of flirting, but men tend to flirt using more direct and verbal tactics while women use more nonverbal and indirect tactics (DeWeerth & Kalma, 1995). As such, men tend to be blunter in their flirting while women tend to flirt in more implicit manners. Even less research has focused on flirtation rejection. Moore (2002) discovered that men rate nonverbal rejection behaviors less negatively than women. Essentially, men may continue flirting with a woman even if she illustrates disinterest in flirting back. Although extant research has suggested some preliminary findings, little is known about flirtation rejection strategies, or how people communicate disinterest when they are receiving unwanted flirtatious advances. Considering that flirting may be both verbal and nonverbal and sex differences exist, it is likely that flirtation rejection responses will also be verbal and nonverbal and will vary by sex. Therefore, the following research questions were proposed: RQ1: What are behavioral rejection strategies college students engage in to indicate disinterest in unwanted flirtatious communication? RQ2: What are verbal rejection strategies college students engage in to indicate disinterest in unwanted flirtatious communication? RQ3: What sex differences, if any, influence these strategies? Assessing Flirtation Rejection Strategies Previous experimental work has been conducted on opening lines in flirtatious communication, which motivated us to research this general area. However, after reviewing the paucity of available flirting research, we discovered that no research has yet examined how individuals communicate rejection after a failed flirtation attempt. …