Reactions to Heterosexual Opening Gambits

Abstract

Gender-related responses to opening conversational gambits were examined in two field and one laboratory experiment. In Experiment 1, a male approached female singles bar patrons, using one of six opening lines, classified as direct, innocuous, or cute-flippant. The cute-flippant lines were found to elicit significantly more negative responses than did the direct and innocuous lines. In Experiment 2, male and female experimenters delivered direct, innocuous, and cute-flippant lines to opposite-sex bar patrons. The experimenters also touched half of the subjects while delivering the opening lines. Female subjects again responded more negatively to the cute-flippant approaches compared to the direct and innocuous gambits. Male subjects displayed significantly more positive responses than did female subjects, regardless of the opening gambit. Interpersonal touch had no significant effect on heterosexual responses. A third, laboratory experiment examined whether gender differences in personality inference processes or in mindlessness could account for female discernment and male responsiveness. Males responded more positively than did the females to the two cute-flippant, the two direct, and one of the innocuous lines and made more positive personality attributions about the individuals who delivered them, suggesting that the genders differ in their attributions in this domain. Although both males and females were influenced by the perceived sociability of the target, judgments of sexiness were closely related to males' interest in the female target but not to females' interest in the male. Females, in contrast were more influenced by the male targets' perceived brightness than by their sexiness.