When First Comes Love (or Lust): How Romantic and Sexual Cues Bias First Impressions in Online Social Networking

Abstract

Three experimental studies (N = 286) tested how priming the concepts of sex or romance influence the way people perceive other social media users. Participants first completed a word-search task containing sexual (intercourse, lust), romantic (love, heart), or control words. Participants then evaluated a target's sexual qualities and romantic qualities based on social media profiles, as well as rated their acceptance of the priming stimuli. Results suggested that sex primes led participants to judge targets as being more alluring, racy, and provocative, whereas romance primes led participants to judge targets as being more tender, sentimental, and kind. Both men and women found all primes to be equally acceptable content; women were not averse to these mainstream, non-explicit sexual stimuli. Findings are discussed in terms of viewing sex and romance as distinct, yet related networks of concepts and the need to disentangle sex, romance, and sexualized views of romance.

Sex, Love, and Risk-n-Responsibility: A Content Analysis of Entertainment Television

“…This ability to make this comparison is important, as recent research suggests social judgments are biased toward thoughts of tenderness and love upon receipt of romantic love cues, whereas people who receive sexual cues without additional cues of love view others more as sexual objects (Dillman Carpentier, Parrott, & Northup, 2014). Moreover, sexual cues within a loving context might temporarily decrease interest in casual sex (i.e., sexual permissiveness), whereas sexual cues outside a loving context might temporarily increase this interest (Dillman Carpentier, 2016).…”