Men’s cognitive performance declines merely from anticipating an interaction with a woman, according to a recently published study.
Previous research found that heterosexual men’s cognitive performance is impaired after interacting with a woman, but the woman does not even need to be physically present to cause the cognitive decline according to the latest study, which was published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.
The study was conducted by Sanne Nauts, Martin Metzmacher, Thijs Verwijmeren, Vera Rommeswinkel and Johan C. Karremans of the Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands.
“Novels and movies frequently feature men who are trying hard to impress a woman but are completely depleted by their attempts, causing them to stumble, forget where they live, or in Levin’s case [from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina], stutter and fail to recognize a friend,” the authors of the study said. “Though these examples may seem far-fetched, recent research suggests that they contain a kernel of truth.”
For their study, the Dutch researchers had college students complete a task in which a male or female assistant was observing them and sending them information via online instant messaging. The participants never actually saw the assistant, which was just a computer program. After completing the task, the researchers measured the participants level of cognitive functioning.
Male participants who had a “female” assistant performed worse than male participants who had a “male” assistant, even though there was no face-to-face interaction. Female participants, on the other hand, were not influenced by the sex of the assistant.
The researchers also had another group of college students perform a similar task. In this second experiment, the participants were merely told they would later be instructed by a research assistant who was male or female. As in the first experiment, male participants who expected to be instructed by a female showed a decline in cognitive performance compared to male participants who expected to be instructed by a male.
“Casually mentioning a female instead of a male name was sufficient to impair mens cognitive performance,” the authors of the study explained.
The effect could be caused by evolutionary pressures, which rewarded men who minimized the risk of missing a mating opportunity by investing cognitive resources into interactions with the opposite sex, according to the researchers. But the cognitive decline could also be caused or exacerbated by testosterone, or male-typical socialization.
“Although more research is needed to investigate the exact process that play a role in the cognitive impairment effect, and to study if it occurs in other groups of participants, such as in gay men, the present research gives us a little more insight in why Levin started stuttering,” the authors concluded. “Even the most subtle form of exposure to a potential mate can diminish men’s cognitive performance, even if she is nothing more than a name on a computer screen.”
