Why think about dating and flirting?
Much sociological research into dating looks at the form of dating and people’s intentions, but as behaviour analysts we can look at the functions of the behaviour, verbal and non-verbal behaviour and how our learning histories affect our choices.

What is it?
"Flirtation” refers to behaviour that entails conversation, body language, or physical contact that potentially establishes or maintains a romantic or sexual relationship between two people. It’s all a form of verbal behaviour and we can study it as such - think topography.

Skinner (1957) defined verbal behavior as behavior maintained by a verbal community in which the interaction of speakers and listeners established the practices of the verbal community itself.

Flirting is really ambiguous. It’s framed by a number of rules but the rules are dynamic as well as implicit instead of explicit. The rules are also very different depending on age, sexual orientation, gender, race, religion and learning history.

Functions:
What’s the function?
- Escape… societal disapproval of 30+ unmarried women (hello spinster vs bachelor).
- Escape… loneliness or lack of socially mediated reinforcement?
- Access to automatic reinforcement - the physical side relationships.
- Tangible… gold digging?
- Social… dating purely for social engagement?
- Mate selection
- Social… knowing someone else finds you attractive

Researchers using scripts of flirtatious acts have found that women are more likely to report flirtation as serving the primary function of “having fun” or maintaining a relationship while men report flirtation as “sex-directed” (Henningsen, 2004)

Autoclitics:
HOW something is said is often more important that WHAT is said. Autoclitics - “You are pretty” vs “I think you’re pretty” The autoclitic is defined as verbal behavior that modifies other verbal behavior or the reaction of the listener.
Think Joey from friends and “How you doin’?”

Wade found that the autoclitic function of “you and me” is more successful in prolonging the duration of a conversation and potentially securing a first date in comparison to the function of “we.” For example, “you and I should grab coffee sometime” was more successful than “we should grab coffee sometime.”

Topographies:
Grammar et al. (2000)-  female interest in a male was positively correlated with “courtship” behaviors e.g. coy smiles. For males, high production of speech was correlated with interest.

Environment
The same behaviours that could be considered flirting (making eye contact, leaning towards someone, touching them) in the right circumstances but not in others.
What about MOs and conditional discriminations?

Reference:
Wade J. A. (2018). (I Think) You Are Pretty: a Behavior Analytic Conceptualization of Flirtation. Perspectives on behavior science, 41(2), 615–636. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-018-0136-y

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Disclaimer: While we’re both behaviour analysts and qualified in our respective fields, this podcast is for education and information sharing only and should not be taken as personal, medical or behavioral advice or services.