The sexual overperception bias: Evidence of a systematic bias in men from a survey of naturally occurring events.

Abstract According to error management theory ( Haselton & Buss, 2000 ), natural selection will often produce adaptively biased systems of judgment, even when these systems produce more errors than alternative designs. In a study of naturally occurring events, evidence of one such bias in men—the sexual overperception bias—was documented. Women ( n =102) and men ( n =114) reported past experiences in which a member of the opposite sex erroneously inferred their sexual interest. Women reported significantly more false-positive errors committed by men than false-negative errors. Men reported roughly equal numbers of false-positive and false-negative errors committed by women, suggesting no bias in women’s sexual inferences. Several within-sex predictors of misperceptions were identified; for example, individuals high in self-perceived mate value reported more false-positive inferences by others than did individuals lower in mate value.