Alcohol Alters Men's Perceptual and Decisional Processing of Women's Sexual Interest

Coreen Farris; Teresa A Treat; Richard J Viken

doi:10.1037/a0019343

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Alcohol Alters Men's Perceptual and Decisional Processing of Women's Sexual Interest

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Alcohol Alters Men's Perceptual and Decisional Processing of Women's Sexual Interest

Coreen Farris, Teresa A Treat and Richard J Viken

Journal of abnormal psychology (1965), Vol.119(2), pp.427-432

05/2010

DOI: 10.1037/a0019343

PMCID: PMC2892179

PMID: 20455615

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Abstract

The current investigation examines the etiology of men's errors in sexual perception after moderate alcohol use. Sensitivity and bias estimates, derived from multidimensional signal detection analysis, revealed that men's alcohol-influenced performance was associated with declining sensitivity to the distinction between women's friendliness and sexual interest. However, sensitivity to the distinction between conservative and provocative clothing was unaffected. Similarly, an alcohol dose led to an increased bias to respond that women's ambiguous cues were sexual interest (rather than friendliness) but did not influence response thresholds for clothing style. Thus, there was specificity to the perceptual and decisional changes associated with alcohol use rather than a simple degradation of men's capacity to process all dating-relevant cues in the environment. Given the link between alcohol use, sexual misperception, and acquaintance-initiated sexual coercion, understanding the etiology of sexual misperception in the context of alcohol use may inform sexual coercion prevention efforts.

alcohol

signal detection

sexual misperception

social perception

Details

Title: Subtitle: Alcohol Alters Men's Perceptual and Decisional Processing of Women's Sexual Interest
Creators: Coreen Farris - Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Teresa A Treat - Department of Psychology, Yale University
Richard J Viken - Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Journal of abnormal psychology (1965), Vol.119(2), pp.427-432
DOI: 10.1037/a0019343
PMID: 20455615
PMCID: PMC2892179
NLM abbreviation: J Abnorm Psychol
ISSN: 0021-843X
eISSN: 1939-1846
Language: English
Date published: 05/2010
Academic Unit: Psychological and Brain Sciences
Record Identifier: 9984002362802771

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