The Kinsey Project: The Bodily, Mental, and Societal Factors of Flirting

Abstract

The art of flirting can be analyzed through the lens of several different sciences. In biology, human to human interaction is largely dependent on three core neurotransmitters. These are released when a person is in the presence of another person deemed attractive. Identifying someone as attractive has a great deal to do with how fertile that person appears to be. While seeing someone attractive and feeling giddy has everything to do with hormones, the conscious decision to act upon these feelings and move ahead and flirt with the person has everything to do with psychology. Psychology determines whether the flirter will indeed flirt with the flirtee. It also divides flirting into two distinct types: purposeful flirting and casual flirting. Examining cultural reasons for flirting is difficult when trying to draw conclusions from only credible scientific studies because not many extensive studies have been performed for the specific subset of cultural influences on flirtatious behavior. In fact, the Kinsey Reporter is one of the largest data collection tools that will probably serve to supply vast quantities of information regarding specifically this subset, further strengthening global understanding of flirting and human sexual behavior in general.

The Biology of Flirting  

According to science, there are three stages of falling in love. While the first stage centers solely on the presence of sex hormones in the body, the second stage focuses on attraction. This attraction is a significant component of flirtation.

In the body, three major monoamines are released in the body when someone is in the presence of a person he or she is attracted to (The Science of Love). These are dopamine, which spikes as highly as if the person experiencing it had taken cocaine; norepinephrine, which causes the heart to race; and serotonin, which is the neurotransmitter most closely related to emotion. The combined release of these neurotransmitters causes the well known giddy feelings and behavior, such as giggling. This subconsciously reveals the romantic attraction of one person to another, encouraging mutual flirtation. This would explain, according to the Kinsey Reporter, why 78% of people who are flirted with through laughing respond by flirting back.

In fact, certain tactics involved in human mating rituals are so common and widespread that “German ethologist Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt was convinced it is innate” (Fisher). One of these tactics was the gaze held between two individuals. The look will be held for “about two to three seconds during which their pupils may dilate – a sign of extreme interest” (Fisher). These are, Fisher believes, necessary aspects for courting another person, and accounts for the Kinsey Reporter’s data that 75% of people will flirt back after encountering an “eye gaze” flirt (Kinsey Reporter). In fact, this interaction is even common during the mating rituals of other primates, such as baboons. In a study conducted by anthropologist Barbara Smuts, one male baboon stared at a member of the opposite sex, and eventually she gave the “return gaze” (Fisher). This later blossomed into a “sexual liaison.”

Being that the root of all flirtation is the desire for sex, it’s no surprise that nonverbal flirtatious moves are usually those indicative of fertility. For example, a woman will sway and draw attention to her hips, “suggesting its ample capacity for bearing a child” (Rogers). Similarly, a man will “signal his ability to protect offspring, his resources and the testosterone-driven vitality of his sperm” by revealing physical aspects such as “pectoral muscles and a hairy chest” (Rogers). When observing flirtation in public, the Kinsey Reporters could not help but notice much nonverbal communication that indicated fertility. For example, the woman might touch her neck to draw attention to her breasts, which can inform a possible mate of her fertile state, whereas the man might square his shoulders or deepen his voice when he laughs, both of which demonstrate the amount of testosterone in his body. Interestingly enough, studies found that women employed nonverbal flirting communication slightly more often than men, which is supported by the data accumulated thus far from the Kinsey Reporter, which details that women were spotted using “body language” flirting techniques 59% of the time, compared to men’s 45%.

Possibly more important than the indicators of fertility a person can consciously or subconsciously emit, pheromones play a large role in human attraction. In a study done by the University of California, it was discovered that smelling a man’s sweat “changed mood, sexual arousal, physiological arousal and brain activation in women” (UC Berkeley News). This indicates that the forces at play during an average bout of flirting are as animalistic as those found in the mating rituals of insects. These pheromones have shown that even, “male underarm sweat had been shown to improve women’s moods and affect their secretion of luteinizing hormone, which is normally involved in stimulating ovulation” (UC Berkeley News). This boils down attraction to a very carnal and basic level; though it is a very important aspect of flirtation, it’s also pertinent to understand that there are other factors that go into the nature of attraction and human mating rituals. Another huge aspect is human psychology, which brings us to:

The Psychology of Flirting

“The Flirting Report”, a study performed by The Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC), interviewed people to gather responses about flirting. It determined that there are two major denominations of flirting: flirting with intent and flirting for fun. As summed up nicely by a group study participant, “There’s flirting to make a move on someone or flirting to have a laugh with someone” (Fox). Interestingly enough, both of these have very different psychological reasons.

Flirting with intent is extremely biological in nature but the impetus to do so is psychological. Psychologically, every organism wants to propagate its genes and humans are no different. What humans find attractive in other humans are signs of fertility and longevity. However, the decision to act once one sees those indicators of vitality is a psychological one. The drive to attract this potential mate becomes a consuming thought and people alter their behaviors to accomplish their goals. As previously mentioned, women become coyer and draw attention to childbearing features whereas men highlight their testosterone levels and status. Studies indicate that women throughout all cultures are attracted to men with greater wealth and better jobs. Wealth and jobs are recent developments and don’t really have a place in evolutionary history and thus aren’t specifically biologically driven. Yet, the psychological association with better paying jobs is that men have more money which they can spend on the children, providing a good upbringing for them, which ensures that the children will go above and beyond surviving. Studies also show that when women first meet men, they give off a wide array of signals, flirty and non-flirty, which serve to confuse men. The purpose is to trick men into revealing their true intentions concerning mating. Since the woman is being more flirtatiously ambiguous, the man is encouraged to be more forward about what he wants (Fox). This can be seen as a psychological safety measure because women are generally very conscious or wary of new men because strange men usually have a greater potential of being harmful. This behavior is also biologically advantageous because it displays whether a man is interested in sticking around or not, which is something a woman should know because she expends much more bodily effort and time in reproducing and raising offspring (Fox). So although the end goal is flirting for a biological purpose (to reproduce), in a more advanced society like today, psychological reasons explain why flirting practices ensue.

Another psychological reason for flirting is as a way of fitting in and forming friendships, encapsulated in the category of flirting for fun. Many people report that flirting in certain locations is ritualistic. For example, coworkers flirt in the workplace just because that is the normal way of making conversation. People report that if one or both parties engaging in flirtatious behavior is/are married, then the flirting is seen as even more harmless because it poses no threat to the relationship since it is such a trivial exchange (Fox). Flirting at the bar is also ritualistic and is a way of keeping things fun and loose. Flirting under these circumstances are just ways for people to enjoy themselves. People like to do what they like to do and flirting is seen as something casual such as wearing clothes one finds appealing. Much like how the clothes one finds appealing is largely dictated by society, flirting rituals are dictated by society. Surely in more conservative countries, women would not gather together with men around the water cooler exchanging casually sexual remarks, whereas in the United States, such behavior is viewed as a pleasantry. Thus, cultural preferences do come into play regarding flirtation and attraction, bringing us to:

The Cultural Aspects of Flirting

When culture is added into the mix, understanding sexual behavior in general between people becomes much more complicated. Although cultures are dynamic and can have various levels of influences on people’s’ behavior, it is not impossible to establish several similarities between cultures. For example, in an article published in 1989, researchers found several similarities in human mate preferences that differed according to the gender of the selecter. One of these gender-specific preferences mentioned was that women looked for men with financial capability and ambition (Buss), preferences that were explained in the psychological section of this paper. One of the limitations of this experiment was that the sample population was biased towards urbanized, cash-economy cultures. Therefore, socioeconomic and cultural factors could have influenced the results, not just psychological factors.

There are so many different cultures in the world, and so examining similarities between cultures is often difficult. Furthermore, cultural influences in sexual behavior can take many shape or forms; some people are aware of which culture they base their behaviors off of, while others are ignorant of which culture they follow on a subconscious level. Some even follow an array of cultures, and thus their behavior might not be traced back to one particular cultural background. To make matters even more complicated, culture can be linked to childhood or adulthood, in which case cultural influences on human behavior can differ in terms of age.  In any case, cultures are always changing. The Kinsey Reporter helps to supply current data and allow us to see similarities in flirting across all cultures.

Conclusion

To tie it all together, it’s helpful to refer to a study done at the Department of Psychology at the University of Central Oklahoma, in which scientists tested if psychological attraction across the board was more attuned with cultural preferences or biological ones. Results returned that though the test subjects from the United States indicated a preference more for those culturally deemed attractive, in areas such as Mexico, China, and Africa, the subjects were more ruled by biology. The study hypothesizes that this could be due to the fact that, “in America, [citizens] mainly follow authority or the media” and because other countries are told less by the media what’s attractive, this type of influence scarcely reaches them” (Kubier). Thus, a person’s mental perception of what qualities are attractive are dually influenced by biology and society.

Works Cited

Buss, D. (1989, January 1). Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures. Retrieved November 23, 2014, from http://www.psy.cmu.edu/~rakison/BussSexDifferencesinHuman.pdf

Fisher, H. (1993, April 1). The Biology of Attraction. Retrieved November 22, 2014, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199303/the-biology-attraction

Fox, K. (2004, January 1). The Flirting Report. Retrieved November 25, 2014, from http://www.sirc.org/publik/Flirt2.pdf

Kinsey Reporter: Share and explore anonymous data about sex. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2014, from http://www.kinseyreporter.org/

Kubier, P. (n.d.). Sexual Attraction Cultural or Genetic. Retrieved November 23, 2014, from http://www.academia.edu/2991168/Sexual_Attraction_Cultural_or_Genetic

Rodgers, J. (1999, January 1). Flirting Fascination. Retrieved November 23, 2014, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199901/flirting-fascination

Sanders, R. (2007, February 6). Male sweat boosts women’s hormone levels. Retrieved November 23, 2014, from http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/02/06_sweat.shtml

The Science of Love. (2014, September 17). Retrieved November 22, 2014, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/love/