Abstract
Previous research on non-verbal courtship behavior (flirting) has been conducted almost exclusively with heterosexual participants and has relied upon an evolutionary-based, reproduction driven framework. This study extended beyond a reductionist perspective to examine the differential contributions of gender identity, traditional masculinity-femininity, gender role ideology, and sexual orientation in predicting flirting behavior. Results from 626 participants revealed that, across all participants, gender, masculinity-femininity, and gender role ideology were predictive of flirting techniques, while sexual orientation was not. Among self-identified men only, sexual orientation was predictive, until the introduction of masculinity-femininity into the model nullified the effect. Among self-identified women, only masculinity-femininity and gender role ideology predicted flirting behavior. The negligible predictive role of sexual orientation suggests that existing paradigms of flirting research may be adequate to capture experiences of flirtatious behavior among sexual minority individuals.
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Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, Montreal, QC, 2018.
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Clark, J., Oswald, F. & Pedersen, C.L. Flirting with Gender: The Complexity of Gender in Flirting Behavior. Sexuality & Culture 25, 1690–1706 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-021-09843-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-021-09843-8