Flirting with threat: Social identity and the perils of the female communality prescription

Women face a unique pressure to satisfy agentic/competence goals simultaneously with communal/likeability goals and are thus held to a different standard of “niceness.” We examined whether women under stereotype threat — a phenomenon in which socially-devalued group members experience underperformance due to fear of confirming negative stereotypes (e.g., Steele, 1997) — might succumb to a communal/likeability prescription to engage in instrumental flirtation, or non-sexual flirtation-consistent behaviors, despite findings that women under threat disavowed flirtation in self-reports. In the current study, women's verbal flirtation-consistent behaviors were similarly low under threat and no-threat interview conditions. However, women under threat exhibited increased nonverbal flirtation-consistent behaviors (Experiment 1), likely indicating a conflict between idealized and actual behaviors. Furthermore, men perceived women under threat as signaling increased sexual intent (Experiment 2), a disconcerting real-world ramification. We situate data in theorizing based on identity bifurcation, the Integrated Process Model of Stereotype Threat, and Self-Discrepancy theory.

Research highlights► Women face a pressure to satisfy communal/likeability prescriptions. ► Women under threat have been shown to disavow a flirtatiousness prescription. ► Women's verbal flirtation-consistent behaviors were similarly low under threat and no-threat. ► However, women under threat exhibited more nonverbal flirtation-consistent behaviors. ► Furthermore, men perceived women under threat as signaling increased sexual intent.