Budget 2025: The real impact on home-grown Irish businesses
Budget 2025: The real impact on home-grown Irish businesses

Sarah Kiely Lavelle

Julie Galbraith: ‘Say yes to everything, then learn how to say no’
Julie Galbraith: ‘Say yes to everything, then learn how to say no’

IMAGE

Celebrity death in the age of social media
Celebrity death in the age of social media

Jenny Claffey

An Oscars favourite and the Hugh Grant thriller everyone’s talking about – what to watch this week
An Oscars favourite and the Hugh Grant thriller everyone’s talking about – what to watch...

Sarah Finnan

The best book releases coming this November
The best book releases coming this November

Sarah Gill

Supper Club: Squash and green bean laksa
Supper Club: Squash and green bean laksa

IMAGE

A covered outdoor space is the surprising highlight of this Dublin extension
A covered outdoor space is the surprising highlight of this Dublin extension

Megan Burns

Peek inside this Donegal home with private sea access and a tennis court
Peek inside this Donegal home with private sea access and a tennis court

Megan Burns

What to bake this weekend: Rainbow cookie loaf cake
What to bake this weekend: Rainbow cookie loaf cake

Sarah Finnan

‘Breaking news: Sex is better at 40 than it is at 20’
‘Breaking news: Sex is better at 40 than it is at 20’

The Secret Socialite

Image / Editorial

The Truth About Flirting


By IMAGE
02nd Feb 2015
The Truth About Flirting

Do you need to have high self-esteem in order to flirt?

An exciting new study has sought to understand our flirting habits in relation to our varying levels of self-esteem. How does high or low self-esteem affect the way in which we interact with potential objects of our affection? Are people with great self-confidence less inclined to worry about rejection and therefore more willing to flirt and even ask somebody out on a date? Are shy, less confident folk too concerned about the risk involved with putting themselves out there to even try? In order to fulfill these hypotheses, researchers undertook two distinct experiments.

Focusing on heterosexual men and women, a large group of people were individually evaluated in terms of their self-esteem and given a corresponding score, as per Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Inventory. As part of the first experiment, they were asked to record a time they had asked somebody out and endured rejection, detailing whether their flirtatious behaviour was direct or indirect as well as how risky they thought that behaviour was at the time. For example, you might record that demonstrating your interest by going in for a kiss without the other person’s consent is pretty risky business.

Secondly, and this one’s particularly interesting, participants who were single were filmed answering questions about themselves and told that someone of the opposite sex (i.e. a potential love interest) would be watching. Those interviewed were either told that they could meet the person watching, if they wanted to, or that there was no chance of coming face to face with them. The researchers watched the videos, noting direct and indirect behaviours associated with high (meeting the person) and low (not meeting them) risk scenarios.
The results were predictable in parts. The men with high self-esteem were far more prepared to flirt openly than the men with low self-esteem. What surprised the researchers, however, was to learn that men with low self-esteem were way more direct (even more so than the men with high self-esteem) when the risk was low.

As for the ladies? Their levels of self-esteem didn’t matter so much; they would flirt more directly where there was less risk, regardless of how confident they were to begin with.

So there you have it, whether you’re a shrinking violet or a casanova, you’re more than capable of flirting given the right set of circumstances.

From the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

@CarolineForan