The Oklahoma Center for Evolutionary Analysis (OCEAN), Department of Psychology, Oklahoma State University.
Department of Psychology, Arizona State University.
Psychol Sci. 2021 Jun;32(6):871-889. doi: 10.1177/0956797620983829. Epub 2021 May 4.
Although casual sex is increasingly socially acceptable, negative stereotypes toward women who pursue casual sex remain pervasive. For example, a common trope in television, film, and other media is that women who engage in casual sex have low self-esteem. Despite robust work on prejudice against women who engage in casual sex, little empirical work has focused on the lay theories individuals hold about them. Across six experiments with U.S. adults ( = 1,469), we found that both men and women stereotype women (but not men) who engage in casual sex as having low self-esteem. This stereotype is held explicitly and semi-implicitly; is not driven by individual differences in religiosity, conservatism, or sexism; and is mediated by inferences that women who have casual sex are unsatisfied with their mating strategy-yet the stereotype persists when women are explicitly described as choosing to have casual sex. Finally, the stereotype appears to be unfounded; across experiments, the same participants' sexual behavior was not significantly correlated with their self-esteem.
尽管随意性行为在社会上越来越被接受，但对追求随意性行为的女性的负面刻板印象仍然普遍存在。例如，在电视、电影和其他媒体中，一个常见的比喻是，从事随意性行为的女性自尊心低。尽管针对从事随意性行为的女性的偏见有大量研究，但很少有实证工作关注个人对她们的理论认识。在六个针对美国成年人的实验中（=1469），我们发现男性和女性都将从事随意性行为的女性（而不是男性）视为自尊心低。这种刻板印象是明确和半隐含的；不是由宗教信仰、保守主义或性别歧视的个体差异驱动的；并且是通过推断女性有随意性行为，对她们的交配策略不满意来介导的——然而，当女性被明确描述为选择有随意性行为时，这种刻板印象仍然存在。最后，这种刻板印象似乎没有根据；在各个实验中，相同参与者的性行为与他们的自尊心没有显著相关。
