Mechanism of the association between men’s self-perceived attractiveness and sexual interest perception: the mediating paths of positive and negative mating efficacies

Abstract

At the core of sexual assault is a misunderstanding of sexual consent, and incorrect sexual interest perception is a misunderstanding of other people’s sexual consent. Therefore, it is important to examine the mechanism of sexual interest perception to prevent instances of sexual assault. In order to explore the relationship and mechanism between self-perceived attractiveness and sexual interest perception, this study explored the relationship between self-perceived attractiveness and sexual interest perception from the perspectives of positive mating efficacy (mating confidence and self-esteem) and negative mating efficacy (perceived rejection experiences from the opposite sex, rejection sensitivity, and social anxiety). Four hundred and three heterosexual male subjects participated in this study (age in years: M = 26.4, SD = 6.1). The results showed that mating confidence and negative mating efficacy, but not self-esteem, mediated the relationship between self-perceived attractiveness and the sexual interest perception. The findings indicated that those with high self-perceived attractiveness overestimated sexual interest and those with low self-perceived attractiveness underestimated sexual interest.

LAY SUMMARY

In general, men tend to overestimate the sexual interest from opposite-sex under the ambiguous condition. Especially, self-attractive men tend to overestimate women’s sexual interest based on their high mating success. However, self-unattractive men tend to underestimate women’s sexual interest based on their being rejected experiences or fear of being rejected in mating condition.

Keywords:

• self-perceived attractiveness
• sexual interest perception
• mating confidence
• self-esteem
• rejection sensitivity
• social anxiety

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Consent for publication

All the authors have seen and approved the manuscript for publication.

Availability of data and material

Study data is available upon request.

Code availability

Model code is available upon request.

Additional information

Funding

This research is sponsored by Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing, China (cstc2020jcyj-msxmX0416).