David Cooper (host)

I am troubled by that.

And I'm here with one of the authors of this research, an experimental psychology researcher, Brayden Hall from the University of Alabama.

Brayden, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

Before we get into what students think of student professor flirting, how much of a real problem is it?

Are we talking little bits of awkwardness, no big deal, or something kind of structurally concerning when it happens?

Sure, a school in England tried to ban it, but I feel like you studied a thing that most universities would just rather not talk about.

What made you think like, yes, an academic paper about flirting in universities, this is what we need right now?

I think we all intuitively know what flirting is, but what counted as flirting in your study?

Is it just like complimenting an outfit?

Is it sitting provocatively on the professor's desk in office hours?

Like, what are the things that you would quantify as flirting?

I'm just picturing myself as an undergrad telling a professor that I'm going into their office and I say I'm single.

They would say, get the heck out.

But also, I'm not attractive.

So maybe that's the issue.

OK, back to the findings.

Like, what do students make of flirting and what kinds of students think it's no big deal?

But they have this feeling that like everyone's gaming the system, but them kind of thing, even though that may not be true and it's not true.

So no matter whether they did or not, both categories of narcissistic types or all categories saw this flirting as less troubling morally, as being ethical.