Month: August 2026

Attraction and Rejection Signaling

Before the mid 20^th century, people could only select a marital partner with a lot of guesswork and hoping for the best. Meeting in person was limited and, what is more, how to evaluate other people and understand your own needs received very little discussion. Personal life was limited. Books and commentary were tied to people’s experiences in the past. There was nowhere to go to discuss the present or what might be more desirable in the future. There existed no discussion of how to evaluate good qualities in a potential partner or how to express your own romantic feelings.

All this changed after 1950 when the first media-using generation came into existence. People began to share their experiences and discuss how to find romantic partners. Your own generation could now supply you with useful information. People learned how to evaluate future partners from such things as their stance, gestures and sociability. All these things spoke about us. Media using generations opened up a huge change. The activities of courtship after 1950 were wrapped around with relevant information that became unstoppable.

We have seen that people send out messages from the meaningful objects they wear and display. Seen in person or through media, people can evaluate others while getting evaluated themselves. The first sociologists to study youth and young adults recognized how important generational information was in people’s lives. Original research by Monica Moore, in 1989 to 1998 publications, has revealed how people, with the help of media skills, now use objects to communicate. Moore makes a number of discoveries. For example, objects may communicate sufficiently without talking to people face to face. For example, a boy may wear cheap flip-flops to a party rather than good but expensive sneakers. Clothing objects like these use nonverbal communication.

It is not just fashion, hair and clothing that speak for us. Moore’s research describes how body stance and gestures support a kind of ‘silent courtship.’ Our bodily stance, gestures and facial expression do the talking for us. They are part of the physical person, but ‘body language’ sends out messages as clearly as direct speech. What is more, communicating by silent gestures can be less embarrassing to people. It may fit in with traditional priorities such as letting the man make the first approach and being the first to speak to a woman. A woman may initiate a romantic connection by sending an unspoken ‘attraction signal.’ Moore’s research shows that, in real life, men rarely make an approach until the women has first signaled, by silent body language, that she is interested.

Generations and objects have shown us that women hold the power to initiate romantic relationships. The unspoken knowledge of a generation is expressed through both ‘attraction signaling’ to potential mates and deliberate ‘rejection signaling’ to repel unwanted approaches. Moore reminds us that pre-teen girls get together in groups to perfect their use of silent communication by gestures. Whether adult or younger, body language becomes powerful when it expresses knowledge gained by people of their own generation.

What is the youngest age people start getting help from a ‘generation’? People start caring about the tasks they face at a young age. What is the youngest age people start getting help from a ‘generation’? People start caring about the tasks they face at a young age. Girls quickly need more help. Their desires become ‘relational’ starting in the ‘tween’ years of 6 to 11. Soon after, they call on their generation even more in their ‘teen’ years from 12 to 20. Girls’ first chosen relationships are those with friends at school. Girls’ own needs may start by being rewarding but often become contentious. Girls find that they need help. Their parents will not be able to show them what is current and attractive. Their own generation must give them what is lacking. People their own age are best placed to give good advice. Examples include guidance on what is most attractive, looking forward to grown-up life and, by teen years, including romantic love.

Boys at this age face different needs and challenges. For them sports and video games take up their time. Boys’ activities require learning rules of games and demand a lot of time practicing. Unlike the girls, boys need to learn fixed skills to play particular games. In contrast, girls need very different skills in personal relationships. Girls need more help because interaction with their own age group is subject to change as a whole new generation. Participating in this change keeps girls up to date as the leading edge of new meaningfulness. This extra work in a changing generation will, as they grow older, elevate girls into taking the lead for their whole generation in many different matters.

How do girls start this new activity? Appropriate objects are possessed in order to send out messages about the person who wears them. Interpreting these owned objects involves everyone in a generation accepting or rejecting new meanings. Agreeing on new messages binds together the active members of the same generation. Top communicating objects include items of clothing and foot ware. For girls, their style must be appropriate and fit in with current fashion.

For example, how might young girls deal with the message sent by a new pair of shoes? How the object here, shoes, is evaluated connects the person with the girl who wears them. Shoes and fashion will circulate through the current generation as a process of evaluation. Advertising may appear in print magazines, public signs, television, and fashion displays, and be modeled by fashionable and famous women. Photographs and videos will provide commentary on the style and be food for thought. The current media-using generation will display new foot ware and groups of girls will decide what they like and what they reject. Current discussions by groups of girls will keep what is deemed fashionable up to date. The fashion sense girls gain comes from their experience of girls’ activities in their own generation. Here is a skill that helps evaluate other girls and oneself.

Consider the case when a girl going to a new school might use by her generational knowledge of shoes. Unfashionable shoes suggest that a girl is under the control of her mother. Generational tools deplore un-stylish shoes but will admire a good style choice. For example, a girl coming to a new school might approach another girl and say “Nice shoes.” These two words may be enough to bring a girl a new friend. The two girls here can recognize each other’s skills in generational awareness and quickly evaluate each other as skilled equals in their fashion sense.

Generations start young and operate in complicated ways. Is this time-based generational knowledge useful to young girls? Evidence suggests that girls bring evaluation tools into their earliest chosen relationships. They keep this going as they grow up. This could help girls take the lead in changing our generation based society.