You’re at university and a stranger of the opposite sex sidles up to you. “I’ve been noticing you around campus. I find you to be very attractive,” they say. Before you know it, the mysterious person is inviting you back to their room to sleep with them. It may be the least creative way of picking someone up, but if it works on you, then research suggests you’re almost certainly a man. This scenario was part of a real experiment at Florida State University conducted in 1978 and designed by psychology professors Russell Clark and Elaine Hatfield to settle a classroom dispute over whether,
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Today an ethics board would not have approved this. Because a strange man propositioning you when you are a woman is terrifying. You must obtain informed consent from all research participants and disclose potential harms
