HOW &

“How and why do we flirt?” Everyone experiences flirting throughout their lives, and it is an important part of the dating

and love process. However, people have different intentions when they flirt and there are also many different ways to flirt. I’ve

always had a strong interest in why people do what they do and I like figuring out people’s thought process behind their actions.

Flirting is also fascinating to me, after leaving a few year rela-tionship I am a newly single 20 year old and this subject matter

has become more prominent in my life. As I am being exposed to how flirting can differ I become more curious of people’s inten-

tions behind the flirting and how they do it.

WHY WEFLIRT

Kara Davis

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barker, Eric. “How to Flirt - Backed by Scientific Research.” Time. April 14, 2014. Accessed March 28, 2018. http://time.com/59786/how-to-flirt-backed-by-scientific-research/.

This article is very helpful because it references several scientific studies that cover various aspects

of flirting. For example it covers some facts on how effective it is, which method is the most effective,

how to analyze certain actions, and covers a few other things. Barker does a good job at referencing

other sources that he found these studies and it is very relevant to my question of “how do you flirt and

how do you perceive flirting?” This source is trust worthy because it is for TIME, which is very reputa-

ble.

Lebowitz, Shana. “13 Facts about Flirting That Single - and Married - People Should Know.” Business Insider. February 09, 2017. Accessed March 28, 2018. http://www.businessinsider.com/facts- about-flirting-2017-2#-3.

This article is helpful because it covers many aspects of how and the motives behind people flirting.

It mentions how there are six different reasons for flirting including: sex, fun, relational, exploring,

esteem, and instrumental. The article has many other science backed facts, such as how flirting can

make people perceive you as more attractive. Studies show that when it is nicer out people are more

receptive to flirting. It also shows things such as there may be 4 main styles of flirting: physical flirts,

traditional flirts, sincere flirts, and playful flirts. This is a trustworthy source because it references sci-

entific experiments and resources

Nauert, Rick. “Flirting Behaviors Explained.” Psych Central News. October 06, 2015. Accessed March 28, 2018. https://psychcentral.com/news/2015/02/13/flirting-behaviors-explained/81207. html.

This article is useful because it explains the different flirting styles in depth. It is interesting to me how

they figured out these four categories and how they can determine which ones you fall into by observ-

ing your behaviors and going into how you flirt. By making these observations they know your general

intention for flirting. It also mentions no matter what kind of flirt you may be it is generally really hard

for people to pick up on signals that other people send. They also mentioned that they coded 36 verbal

actions. This source is trustworthy because it references a specific scientific experiment.

Rodgers, Joann Ellison. “Flirting Fascination.” Psychology Today. January 1, 1999. Accessed March 28, 2018. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/199901/flirting-fascination.

This article is explaining a lot of the subconscious ways that someone would flirt. Mainly using body

language. This is an interesting idea to take into my study because even if someone doesn’t think they

can flirt does that mean that they don’t show these subconscious signals if there is attraction? Or if

someone considers themselves a flirty person does that mean they show these signs to everybody? It

is an interesting concept to look into. The observers say that body language is very important to how

people may perceive and read situations. They also talk about how flirting affects brain function say-

ing that the moment of attraction actually mimics a type of brain damage. This article is a trustworthy

source because it is backed up by scientific research and is fact checked frequently.

Roti, Jessi. “Understanding Fine Line between Flirting, Friendliness in the Office.” Chicagotribune. com. May 11, 2017. Accessed March 28, 2018. http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/sc- flirting-vs-friendly-family-0516-20170510-story.html.

This article is useful because it defines the difference between what may be a flirty encounter and

what may be a social encounter. Such as if a person is only giving you special attention then they may

be flirting with you or if they give everyone the same attention they are probably just flirty. This is

helpful because for a lot of people it is difficult to distinguish the two ideas. It also discusses how flirt-

ing can turn into harassment and where that line is too. I think that is helpful because I feel as if people

are afraid that they may give wrong signals to people. I think this source is trustworthy because it is

part of the Chicago Tribune.

Female Male Gender FluidGender

HeterosexualBisexualHomosexual

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Num

ber o

f Res

pond

ants

Q1: Q2: Please Identify your Gender

Please Identify your Sexuality

RAW DATA:

N=20

Female BisexualHeterosexualHeterosexualHeterosexual

HeterosexualHeterosexualHeterosexual

HeterosexualHeterosexualHeterosexualHeterosexual

Heterosexual

Heterosexual

Heterosexual

Heterosexual

BisexualBisexual

Bisexual

Bisexual

Bisexual

FemaleFemaleFemaleFemale

Female

Male

Male

MaleMale

Male

Female

FemaleFemaleFemaleFemale

Female

FemaleFemale

Gender Fluid She/They

ANALYSIS:Here we have people’s identified gender and their identified sexuality. I thought that these data sets were an interesting match because all of the Male’s that answered my survey were heterosexual. However, that could be because there were 9 more girls than boys who took the survey. I also found it interesting that no one who participated in the survey identified as homosexual. I think that it would be helpful to get more of a range of people of all sexualities to participate because I feel like it would be interesting to see the differences in flirting styles across the sexuality spectrum. The data informs me that 14 Females took my survey, 9 of them being heterosexual and the other 5 being bisexual. 5 Males took my survey, all of them identifying as heterosexual and one Gender Fluid person (She/They) participated and they identified as bisexual.

18 19 20 21 22 2324 25

Average Age

Q3: What is your Age?

N=20

21, 21, 19, 18, 18, 19, 18, 19, 19, 22, 21, 18, 21, 20, 23, 19, 18, 20, 22, 25

RAW DATA:

ANALYSIS:The data shows the age of the participants of my survey. Five People who took my survey were 18, five people were 19,two people who took the survey were 20, four people were 21, two people were 22, one person was 23 and one person was 25. Half of the people who participated were either ages 18 or 19. This means that my data sets are very representative of a typical college age student. The average age of the survey was 20. The youngest age of the respondents was 18 and the oldest age of the respondents was 25.

Q4: What is Your Relationship Status?

In a Relationship65%

Single30%

Other5%

*Person Answered Other As: Confused.

RAW DATA:In a Relationship 65% 13

Single 30% 6

Other 5% 1

ANALYSIS:I asked the respondents to identify their relationship status. The vast majority of the respondents were in a relationship when they took the survey. This tells me that their mindset for flirting may differ from someone who is single. 13 people, or 65% of respondents were in a relationship at the time of their participation and 6 people, or 30% of respondents were sin-gle at the time of their participation. One person did choose the “other” option and chose to define their relationship status as “Confused.”

N=20

Q5: How flirty of a person would you say you are?

RAW DATA:

N=20

Far Above Average

Far Below Average

Some What Above Average

Some What Below Average

Average

Far Above Average 0% 0

10% 2

55% 11

25% 5

10% 2Far Below Average

Somewhat Above Average

Somewhat Below Average

Average

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

ANALYSIS:The data for this question shocked me. I was anticipating people to identify themselves as more flirty, but only two respon-dents identified themselves as somewhat above average of a flirty person and no one identified themselves as a far above average flirty of a person. Over half of the respondents identified them as an average amount of flirty and seven people identified themselves as a below average flirty person. Participants felt as they fell somewhat in the middle of the “flirty” spectrum while two people identified themselves as a far below average flirty person.

Q6: Q7: How Comfortable Are You Flirting?

How Much Do You Like Flirting?

RAW DATA:

N=20

Extremely Comfortable Like A Great Deal5% 15%1 3

35% 60%7 12

20% 20%4 4

35% 0%7 0

5% 5%1 1Extremely Uncomfortable Dislike A Great Deal

Somewhat Comfortable Like Somewhat

Somewhat Uncomfortable Dislike Somewhat

Neither Comfortable or Uncomfortable Neither Like or Dislike

Left Side:How Comfort-able Are You Flirting?

Right Side: How Much Do You Like Flirting?

Like/Comfortable

Dislike/Uncomfortable

Niether

ANALYSIS:I decided to combine the questions of “How Comfortable Are You Flirting?” and “How Much Do You Like Flirting?” I found this pairing interesting because I discovered that there were people who felt uncomfortable or neither comfortable nor uncomfortable flirting that liked flirting. Only 40% of people felt they are comfortable flirting and 75% of people said that they like flirting. Analyzing how comfortable people feel flirting one person feels extremely comfortable flirting, 7 people feel somewhat comfortable flirting, 4 people feel neither comfortable or uncomfortable, 7 people feel somewhat uncom-fortable and one person feels extremely uncomfortable flirting. With how much people like flirting 3 people like flirting a great deal, 12 people like flirting somewhat, 4 people neither like nor dislike flirting and one person dislikes flirting a great deal.

Q8: How Have You Felt About Your Past Experiences With Flirting?

RAW DATA:

N=20

Extremely Good 10%

10% 5%25%30% 30%

2

30% 6

25% 5

30% 6

5% 1Extremely Bad

Somewhat Good

Somewhat Bad

Neither Good Nor Bad

ANALYSIS:The answers for this question were all over the board. While people tended to stay more towards the middle of the feeling spectrum there was one person that felt extremely bad about their past experience flirting and two people felt extremely good about their past experience flirting. 6 people felt somewhat good about their past experiences flirting and 6 people felt somewhat bad. In the middle there were 5 people who felt neither good nor bad about their past experiences flirting.

Q9: If You Are Romantically Interested in Some-one How Likely Are You to Make a Move?

RAW DATA:

N=20

Extremely Likely

Extremely Likely

Somewhat Likely

Somewhat Unlikely

Extremely Unlikely

Neither Likely Nor Unlikely

5% 1

45% 9

15% 3

25% 5

10% 2Extremely Unlikely

Somewhat Likely

Somewhat Unlikely

Neither Likely Nor Unlikely

ANALYSIS:The data results fro this question shows that 50% of people are either somewhat likely or extremely likely to make a move on someone they are romantically interested in. This is more people than I was expecting, however, I am not surprised by the results. There are still a good amount of respondents that are neither likely nor unlikely, somewhat unlikely, or ex-tremely unlikely to make a move on someone they are romantically interested in. I think that to expand this question I could have also included their likeness of making a move on someone that they are sexually interested in as well. One person said they are extremely likely to make a move, nine people are somewhat likely to make a move, three people are neither likely nor unlikely to make a move, five people are somewhat unlikely to make a move and two people are extremely unlike-ly to make a move on someone they are romantically interested in.

Q10: Do You Think You Can Tell if Someone is Flirting With You?

RAW DATA:

N=20

Definitely Yes

Definitely Yes25%

Probably Yes30%

Might or Might Not15%

Probably No25%

Definitely No5%

25% 5

30% 6

15% 3

25% 5

5% 1Definitely No

Probably Yes

Probably No

Might or Might Not

ANALYSIS:The data for this question surprised me. I felt like that I personally am not great at telling when people are flirting with me causing me to assume other people would feel that same way. While some people did feel the same was as me, one person answering definitely no, five people answering probably no and three people answering might or might not that is only 45% of people and 15% of them answered they might or might not be able to tell. That being said six people said that probably yes they could tell when someone is flirting with them and five people answered definitely yes they can tell when people are flirting with them.

Q11: How Well Do You Know The People You Flirt With? (Check All That Apply)

RAW DATA:

N=20

Extremely Well

Extremely Well Very Well Moderately Well Slightly Well Not Well at All

15% 3

50% 10

50% 10

30% 6

25% 5Not Well at All

Very Well

Slightly Well

Moderately Well

ANALYSIS:This question I wanted to address with whom people are flirting with. Do people flirt with strangers, acquaintances or even close friends? From the results half of the respondents said that they flirt with people they know very well, and moderate-ly well. People were a bit more hesitant to click that they flirt with people they know extremely well which only 3 people responded that way. This particular answer makes me wonder since many people who took my survey were in a relation-ship does that mean they don’t flirt with their partner? I think that would be interesting to dive more into. Six people said they flirt with people they know slightly well and five people said they flirt with people they don’t know well at all. I think to improve this question I could add a space for people to type a response and describe their reasoning behind why they flirt with whom they flirt with.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11Count Of Respondants

Q12: What motives do you have when you flirt? (Check all that apply)

RAW DATA:

ANALYSIS:By the data you can see that 80% of responsders said that they flirt to increase the intamacy of a relationship. This is by far the largest reason why the respondents say that they flirt. This is followd by increasing self esteem and treating it like a sport. Most respondents chose more than one reason why they flirt so it shows that depending on the situation they are in can change their motices onle 25% of respondents say that they flirt with someone to get into bed with them. Followed by people flirting wo try to see what it would be like in a relationship and the least reason people flirt coming in at 15% of respondents saying they flirt with people trying to get something.

N=20

Sex: Trying to Get into Bed

Sex: Trying to Get into Bed

Instrumental: Trying to Get Something From the Other Person

25%

15%

5

3

45% 9

20% 4

80% 16

55% 11Esteem:Increasing One’s Own Self Esteem

Esteem:In-creasing

One’s Own Self Esteem

Fun: Treating it Like a Sport

Fun: Treating it Like a Sport

Count Of Respondants

Relational: Trying to Increase the Intamacy of a Relationship

Relational: Trying to

Increase the Intamacy of a Relationship

Exploring: Trying to See What it Would be Like in a Relationship

Exploring: Trying to See

What it Would be Like in a

Relationship

Instrumental: Trying to Get

Something From the Oth-

er Person

0

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4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Q13: Where Do You Flirt? (Check All That Apply)

RAW DATA:

N=20

Class

Bar

40%

55%

8

11

20%

20%

4

4

80%

25%

16

5

35%

10%

7

2

75% 15Party

Phone Calls

Cafe/ Resturaunt

Social Media

Other

Text Message

Text Message

Party

Bar

Class

Social Media

At Work

Phone Calls

Cafe/Resturaunt

OtherOther: Face to FaceHanging Out

While You Are Working

ANALYSIS:This question addresses the “where” question of peo-ple’s flirting habits. I found a trend that people like to flirt over text message. 80% of respondents indicated that they flirt over text. Following that 75% of people say they flirt at parties and 55% of people flirt at bars. I made a correlation between alcohol being present and people possibly feeling more comfortable with flirting. The following bar is class which 40% or re-spondents indicated, then social media at 35%, while they’re working at 25%, phone calls at 20%, cafe/restaurant at 20% and I recieved two write ins for oth-er. One respondent wrote in face to face and another respondent wrote in hanging out. These write ins made me realize that I may have not done a good job at covering the places where people flirt. I also think it would be interesting to ask where people feel the most comfortable flirting along side of the question of where do they flirt.

Q14: Describe How You Flirt.

RAW DATA:

N=15

-i’m like really bad at flirting so i just smile more than normal and look at the person a lot -Winky faces, lol -Not well, subtly -Talking with someone and complimenting them -friendly flirt -smile, make eye contact, physical contact when needed (hand touch), laugh -Very Directly -I smile more, I laugh more, I try to get the other person comfortable, and I appear confident. I defi-nitely show that I’m interested. -I try and have a good sense of humour -Lots of eye contact. Arm touching. Teasing. Complimenting. -Conversation, giving someone full attention, physical contact through hugs -By joking around -Mostly jokey and caring so that the person can tell I’m fun but also emotionally interested in them. I also try to compliment them, smile a lot, and make eye contact. -I laugh a lot, can get awkward sometimes, smile a lot, eye contact, humor -Make the person laugh/happy

LAUGHEYE CONTACT SMILE

TOUCHCOMPLIMENT

ANALYSIS:This question was one of two of write in only questions on my survey. That being said 5 people decided not to answer it. In this question I asked the participants to describe how they flirt. A lot of people mentioned laughing, joke and other humor related words. Other reoccurring words that I noticed were things such as eye contact, smile, touch and compliment.

Q15: Describe How You Like To Be Flirted With.

RAW DATA:

N=15

-i like to be flirted with the same way that i flirt. also, i get uncomfortable when people who i don’t know very well try to flirt with me through texting or social media. -Not sure... -Not subtly, please be obvious or i won’t realize -While hanging out in a relaxed setting where everyone is comfortable -friendly flirt -smiled at, laughed with, eye contact, physical contact (hand touch) -Very Directly -I love humor, I like when they make me feel comfortable so that the conversation runs smoothly, and I enjoy being complimented. -Joking around with me -I like to be complimented and reassured. -Someone caring about the conversation, being interested in what I have to say, physical contact through hugs or kisses -Make a move -I like it best when people make me laugh and can show me that they are a kind and caring person. It’s also important that they show me they’re intelligent in some respect, maybe talking about things they find interesting or causes they care about. It also doesn’t hurt if they make things they say very per-sonal to the two of us instead of speaking generally. -Really dry humor, not pushy or uncomfortable flirting -AKA he doesn’t make it weird - playful and innocent -In a way they show interest

LAUGHEYE CONTACT SMILE

TOUCHCOMPLIMENTANALYSIS:

This is the second of the two questions I asked that were write in only and the same 5 people who didn’t answer the first one also didn’t answer this question. This question I asked participants to describe how they like to be flirted with. If you notice I used the same data visualization and that is because I noticed a lot of similar pattern and the same things were mentioned from both of the questions. I think that means that people generally flirt with others how they like to be flirted with. In the raw data though there are two mentions of people not like being made feel uncomfortable. I think it would be helpful if in my question of how comfortable people felt flirting I asked them to explain why they have felt comfortable or uncomfortable in the past.

Second Research Method: ObservationWith my second method I wanted to observe people flirting in person. Doing this I hoped to get more of an understanding on people’s body language and other subconscious actions that people may do while flirting. I also just wanted to observe reoccurring behaviors and actions that people did while flirting. These observations help me identify the “how” of my question of “how & why do people flirt?” Executing the observations was more difficult then I anticipated. I decided to ob-serve people in some of the more popular locations that people like to flirt according to my survey. These locations being: text message, and a party. With text message I had a very generous friend allow me to look through their phone and record any habits or patterns I could find in the messages between her and her boyfriend. I was looking for things such as emojis, gifs, and what the content of the messages included. I also looked at messages between her and her best friend from high school so I could really be sure of the differences that I found. With the party location I was looking at how people interact-ed with each other. When something “flirty” happened such as arm touching, laughing and complimenting occurred I made a note on my phone. I also wanted to see if flirty actions seemed to increase as the night went on and see how that affected people’s actions. By observing in three different locations I also wanted to identify any differences I found in the kind of flirting depending on the environment by comparing the collect data.

RAW DATA:Text Message: BoyfriendTotal Number of Messages in 24 hours: 67Number of Emojis: 10Number of Gifs: 4 Number of Compliments (given and received): 3Number of Memes: 1Notable Messages:

“You look really beautiful today, I’m sorry I was able to chat with you, are we still getting dinner later?”

“How did your test go this morning? I know you were really stressed about it last night, I am sure you killed it! *Heart emoji*

Text Message: BestfriendTotal Number of Messages in 24 hours: 20Number of Emojis:2Number of Gifs:0Number of Compliments (given and recieved): 0Number of Memes: 3Notable Messages:

“I miss you! What’ve you been up to lately?”

“Wait are S**** and R**** back together?”

MORE RAW DATA:Party: April 14th 10pm - April 15th 1amNumber of Observed Physical Contact:8Number of Observed Smiles:42Number of Observed Shared Laughter:28Number of Observed Pairs Kissing:2

Notes: -It is kind of of difficult to identify people who are flirting and who are just having a conversation. -Some people the flirt is one sided. I observed only one person in a two-person conversation touch-ing, smiling and it not being reciprocated by the other person also being observed. -Observed three people engaged in a flirty conversation, a lot of laughing, possibly a friendly conver-sation.

Total # of Messages: 67 Total # of Messages: 20Boyfriend Bestfriend

Emojis Emojis

GifsGifs

Memes Memes

Messages:

Messages:

“You look really beautiful today, I’m sorry I was able to chat with you, are we still getting dinner later?”

“How did your test go this morning? I know you were really stressed about it last night, I am sure you killed it! *Heart emoji*

“I miss you! What’ve you been up to lately?”

“Wait are S**** and R**** back together?”

ComplimentsCompliments

8 Occurrences of Observed Physical

Contact

42 Observed Smiles 28 Occurrences of Observed Laughter

2 Occurrences of Ob-served Pairs Kissing

While I feel that observing people flirting in person was a helpful insight on how people act when they are flirting and how people talk to people they are romantically interested in opposed to people they are only platonically interested in, I had some difficulty observing people at the party. While I did observe some of the self-indicated flirting behavior it was hard to identify in the setting because I wasn’t sure of the persons intentions behind the flirting. It was also hard for me to observe people’s personal versions of flirting because it was hard for me to observe things that haven’t been brought to my inten-tion previously from the survey. With the observations from the text I saw that texts are hard to interpret because you don’t get to hear the person say it so you have to imagine their tone of voice. While the texts with the boyfriend were generally more loving and there were more emojis and compliments the conversation didn’t differ too crazy much from the texts with her best friend. I think it would also be interesting to see text messages between her and a stranger to really see a differ-ence.

ANALYSIS:

My two research methods, the survey and observations provided me with interesting data. The survey provided me with an answer to both how and why people flirt and observations allowed me to dive deep-er into how people flirt. I also got an insight into how people felt about flirting and how they approached flirting. If I could turn this research method into a project other than a poster I would make a book that would be along the lines of “flirting for dummies.” With in this book I would include the informational diagrams and I would also have differ-ent methods of flirting explain and dive a bit deeper into the body lan-guage aspect of flirting. Throughout my research I had a few surprises in the results of my data but only because it didn’t match up to how I felt personally. I think that this project really opened my eyes on how peo-ple can differ. I also had some problems with observing during the party because I didn’t know the intentions the people had behind the flirting. I didn’t know if they were doing it for one of the 6 reasons listed in the survey or if they were even conscious of their flirting and I don’t know how alcohol played a part in the observation. If people, who are over 21, were consuming alcohol does that mean they are more likely to flirt? I think that the observations were be more effective if I interviewed the people after and got their feelings and takes on what happened. I am happy with my results on the survey, while there are small changes I would make such as asking people to explain their thoughts I think that the data was very informative and insightful. I would also prefer to get more and a wider range of people to participate on the survey for more inclusive results.