A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire by Ogi Ogas, Sai Gaddam
Authors: Ogi Ogas, Sai Gaddam
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own table. Eventually, Hatfield became a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, where she pioneered research into the psychology of falling in love. The National Science Foundation awarded her a grant for her research; ironically, this grant led to a much bigger setback than she experienced that Monday evening at the Faculty Club.
In 1975, she was awarded the Golden Fleece Award, which was no award at all. This notorious “honor” was bestowed by Wisconsin senator William Proxmire on federally funded research projects that didn’t meet his notions of “good science.” He launched his well-publicized smear campaign against Elaine Hatfield’s research with a press release:
I object to this not only because no one—not even the National Science Foundation—can argue that falling in love is a science; not only because I’m sure that even if they spend $84 million or $84 billion they wouldn’t get an answer that anyone would believe. I’m also against it because I don’t want the answer.
After newspapers published accounts suggesting that her research was silly and perhaps immoral, she lost her research funding. But even worse was the public shame—even her neighbors believed she had fleeced the government for bogus research.
She didn’t give up. In 1978, she wrote a book called A New Look at Love , summarizing what was known about the psychology of passionate and companionate love. It won the American Psychological Association’s National Media Award. She went on to author more than one hundred academic papers on desire and romance. She’s published other well-received science books, like Love, Sex, and Intimacy, and applied her knowledge of human psychology in several detective novels, such as Vengeance Is Mine . But the publication that generated the most lasting controversy for Hatfield was also one of her shortest—a psychology research paper focused on the differences between the desires of women and men.
One sunny afternoon, Hatfield and fellow psychologist Russell Clark sent nine research assistants onto the college campus of Florida State University: four young men and five young women from an undergraduate psychology class, all neatly dressed in casual attire. The male confederates were instructed to approach female students. The female confederates were instructed to approach male students. Each confederate asked his or her target one of three questions:
1. Would you go out with me tonight?
2. Would you come over to my apartment tonight?
3. Would you go to bed with me tonight?
How do you think the male students responded? The results are on the next page, but before you look, try to guess. What percentage of men do you think would say yes to a sexual solicitation from an attractive but completely unknown stranger?
Men were apparently more motivated to sleep with a woman than to date her. But what about women? What percentage of college women do you think would say yes to an invitation to go home with an attractive college guy who just walked up to her on campus?
For almost a decade, Hatfield and Clark couldn’t get these dramatic results published. Some journal editors suggested that it must be something unique to Florida State—perhaps the torrid weather. Journal editors expressed disbelief, denigrating the research as unscientific, naive, or simply too provocative. One editor wrote, “This paper should be rejected without possibility of being submitted to any scholarly journal. If Cosmopolitan won’t print it then Penthouse Forum might like it.”
But by now, Hatfield was used to such setbacks. She and Clark repeated the same study at Florida State. They obtained nearidentical results: this time, no women agreed to go home with the male research confederate. The results were finally published in the Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality in 1989. Today, the paper is considered a social psychology classic.
In the 2000s, the Hatfield and Clark study was replicated in
In 1975, she was awarded the Golden Fleece Award, which was no award at all. This notorious “honor” was bestowed by Wisconsin senator William Proxmire on federally funded research projects that didn’t meet his notions of “good science.” He launched his well-publicized smear campaign against Elaine Hatfield’s research with a press release:
I object to this not only because no one—not even the National Science Foundation—can argue that falling in love is a science; not only because I’m sure that even if they spend $84 million or $84 billion they wouldn’t get an answer that anyone would believe. I’m also against it because I don’t want the answer.
After newspapers published accounts suggesting that her research was silly and perhaps immoral, she lost her research funding. But even worse was the public shame—even her neighbors believed she had fleeced the government for bogus research.
She didn’t give up. In 1978, she wrote a book called A New Look at Love , summarizing what was known about the psychology of passionate and companionate love. It won the American Psychological Association’s National Media Award. She went on to author more than one hundred academic papers on desire and romance. She’s published other well-received science books, like Love, Sex, and Intimacy, and applied her knowledge of human psychology in several detective novels, such as Vengeance Is Mine . But the publication that generated the most lasting controversy for Hatfield was also one of her shortest—a psychology research paper focused on the differences between the desires of women and men.
One sunny afternoon, Hatfield and fellow psychologist Russell Clark sent nine research assistants onto the college campus of Florida State University: four young men and five young women from an undergraduate psychology class, all neatly dressed in casual attire. The male confederates were instructed to approach female students. The female confederates were instructed to approach male students. Each confederate asked his or her target one of three questions:
1. Would you go out with me tonight?
2. Would you come over to my apartment tonight?
3. Would you go to bed with me tonight?
How do you think the male students responded? The results are on the next page, but before you look, try to guess. What percentage of men do you think would say yes to a sexual solicitation from an attractive but completely unknown stranger?
Men were apparently more motivated to sleep with a woman than to date her. But what about women? What percentage of college women do you think would say yes to an invitation to go home with an attractive college guy who just walked up to her on campus?
For almost a decade, Hatfield and Clark couldn’t get these dramatic results published. Some journal editors suggested that it must be something unique to Florida State—perhaps the torrid weather. Journal editors expressed disbelief, denigrating the research as unscientific, naive, or simply too provocative. One editor wrote, “This paper should be rejected without possibility of being submitted to any scholarly journal. If Cosmopolitan won’t print it then Penthouse Forum might like it.”
But by now, Hatfield was used to such setbacks. She and Clark repeated the same study at Florida State. They obtained nearidentical results: this time, no women agreed to go home with the male research confederate. The results were finally published in the Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality in 1989. Today, the paper is considered a social psychology classic.
In the 2000s, the Hatfield and Clark study was replicated in
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