People who know such things tell me that it’s a good idea to be discerning about whose connection request you accept on LinkedIn. The quality of your connections goes into some spooky score whatchamacallit that influences algorithmic joo joo, which influences your visibility / networking index. Or whatever.
My interpretation is that I shouldn’t accept too many connection requests from sales people who just want to pitch me something.
Unless she’s cute.
No, that’s not a conscious choice, but I know enough about marketing to know that such things are rolling around in the back of my brain when I evaluate a connection request.
Surely someone studying “implicit bias” in college has tested this, right? You use the same text in the profile, but for one you put the picture of some average-looking Indian dude, then a white guy, then a black guy, then an attractive woman ….
If you doubt that there’s female privilege in that part of the game, you’re not paying attention.
Greg,
Do you find LinkedIn useful? Perhaps my field (academia) doesn’t lend itself very well to LinkedIn as I’ve never found it helpful to connect with people in my profession. However, I’m not very fond of how LinkedIn is set up either. It seems a bit clunky to me. I don’t doubt that female “privilege” (or attractive female privilege) plays a role in LinkedIn requests and requests at other such sites. I’m sure that other privileges, for example those with conventional names, play a role too.
The hetero male is probably the most weak-willed entity ever. He is always prone to drop all the rest of his pressing affairs and succumb to a pretty face.
That men are easily distracted by a pretty face (which is true) does not prove that they are generally weak willed. Most people are easily distracted by a laughing baby, or a cute kitten, etc. That doesn’t make them weak willed in general.
When you look into the science of attraction and decision-making, it’s very obvious that people are motivated by weird things they don’t even understand. For example, there have been a lot of studies done on how to motivate hotel patrons to participate in the “don’t wash my towels” thing. One technique that is surprisingly effective is to make people a part of an artificial group — like “people who stay on the 5th floor.” It’s completely irrational. The person didn’t choose the 5th floor, and doesn’t know anybody on the 5th floor, and in a week he will forget which floor his room was on, but if you say something like “5th floor patrons are 10 percent more likely to participate,” it increases the response rate.
It’s very spooky, very weird stuff. Many of the decisions we make in a day are motivated by things we don’t even understand.
Yes, many (but not all) heterosexual men can be distracted by a pretty face. Likewise, many (but not all) heterosexual women can be easily distracted too. If you’ve ever walked through a mall with a group of women, you’ll notice how many of them are easily distracted by stores with clothing, jewelry, etc., even if they aren’t necessarily in the market to buy. That’s generally not the case for most heterosexual men. I am completely indifferent to jewelry and only look at clothing if I actually have something in mind that I need to purchase. In any case, what distracts people isn’t equivalent to being weak willed.
Speaking of pretty faces, however, I bet pretty female faces have an impact on the behavior of other women too, albeit not necessarily in the same way as men and certainly not for the same reasons. Greg is right that people do some things for weird, irrational reasons that they don’t quite understand.
Yes, the weird thing is that you would expect women to be drawn to attractive male faces. But they’re not. They are also drawn to attractive female faces, but for different reasons. The man sees the attractive woman and thinks, “I want her.” The woman thinks “I want to be her.”
The weak-willed part comes in when the guy is not only distracted by the pretty face, but drops what he is doing and tries to connect (in some way) with the female in question, often contrary to his rational self-interests.
I think that when women see another woman who is prettier, it might provoke envy or anger, but it will usually not lead to irrational behavior.
Of course I am only speaking roughly here.
I agree that dropping what you are doing and trying to connect (in a non-professional way) is weak-willed. That said, I imagine many if not most men don’t go that far, even if the photo of a pretty woman gets their attention for a moment or makes them more likely to respond “yes” to a request from the woman in question to connect professionally on LinkedIn or other such sites. The later behavior is a tad irrational, but it isn’t necessarily weak willed.
I find LinkedIn useful for keeping up with my professional contacts, but I don’t like it. It’s a crappy service in many ways.
QUOTE: That said, I imagine many if not most men don’t go that far, even if the photo of a pretty woman gets their attention for a moment or makes them more likely to respond “yes” to a request from the woman in question to connect professionally on LinkedIn or other such sites.
@RR, I’m not sure that’s accurate. No one “really” knows the rate of such behavior online. Yet, if we look at common internet behavior, it “might” be happening more than we realize. Some psychologists indicate that the possibility of anonymity or physical distance from one another makes cyber-flirting seem innocent-and just sexy fun the first time someone tries it. However, people’s emotions and desires build and what started out as a casual flirtation can build into a habit–and perhaps, an in-person meeting.
In a poll, when asked of people in a committed relationship, “Have you ever flirted with somebody online (chat room, Facebook, email, etc.)?”, overall 46 percent said yes, and there was no significant difference in levels of flirting by age. There was, however, a significant difference in the levels of flirting broken out by gender. 51 percent of men, versus 41 percent of women, admitted to flirting online. An article in PsychCentral also highlights the commonality of internet infidelity within our culture. https://psychcentral.com/blog/why-online-infidelity-is-so-common/
Albeit, I don’t know the frequency, I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the possibility that a number of men “do” go that far. They may “start” with a professional motive but have ulterior motives too…especially if they convince themselves that it’s just a bit of harmless fun.
William,
I’m a little surprised by the poll you cite. Maybe I’m just wrong on this. I’m an old married guy (or a middle aged guy who has been married a long time) with no interest in this sort of thing. Perhaps I’m a little naive about how other people behave regarding actually flirting online, although still I do wonder if people are a bit more restrained in an online professional setting because of the potential for negative professional ramifications. In other words, using LinkedIn to flirt is very different than doing so on a purely social media site or especially a social site with a lot of anonymity.
@RR, unfortunately, the cyber world is a bit more dubious than you might imagine. Even with a “professional” setting, the behavior can still apply. Some simply make their initial approach benign, establish a connection and then go from there. Others create fake profiles to protect their identity so they can flirt more freely without being discovered. As this article highlights, fake profiles are somewhat common on LinkedIn. https://digiday.com/marketing/linkedins-fake-account-problem/amp/
Again, the actual volume isn’t known. Yet, given this pattern of cyber behavior, I suspect it happens more frequently than your initial post indicated.
William,
Fake profiles on LinkedIn? Yikes! I’m glad that it isn’t an important site for me professionally. I wonder if people even run scams on LinkedIn. I worried more about internet scams and e-mail phishing than flirting or even worse behavior.
@RR, yes, scams are on LinkedIn. If you’ve not done so already, check out the article in my previous post. If I remember correctly, scams are discussed that there. For all its benefits, cyberspace is a wild ‘n crazy place and lots of unsavory things can happen in even the best of venues!