Vargek, Petra.
(2013).
Can the interaction with the opposite sex affect the cognitive performance?.
Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology.
[mentor Tadinac, Meri].
Abstract
Karremans et al. (2009) have shown that (heterosexual) men's but not women's cognitive performance declined following an opposite sex interaction, regardless of their romantic relationship status. The effect was stronger for the participants who perceived the woman as more attractive and who reported higher levels of impression management. The aim of this study was to examine whether the interaction with the opposite sex can affect cognitive performance. Before and after the same or opposite sex interaction (jointly task solving) participants (N=129) individually completed a cognitive task and afterwards reported about the impression management during interaction and the attractivness and romantic relationship potential of opposite sex person they interacted with. Contrary to previous research, both men and women, regardless of the type of interaction and their romantic relationship status, had the same relative cognitive performance. For women, but not men, a higher perceived attractiveness was correlated with a poorer relative cognitive performance. Both, women and men, who considered the opposite sex person as a potential partner, compared to those who did not, had poorer relative cognitivne performance. There was no correlation between relative cognitive performance and self-reported impression management for neither men nor women. The influence of the experimental conditions, as well as the methodological weaknesses, on the unexpected results are discussed.
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