According to error management theory (EMT), when judgments are made under uncertainty and the costs of errors are not symmetrical, humans have adapted to favor less costly errors (Haselton, Buss, & DeKay, 1998). When judgments are made under conditions of uncertainty, there are two types of errors possible: false positives and false negatives. The costs of making these types of errors are often asymmetric, because decreasing the probability of making one type of error increases the probability of making the other type of error (Green and Swets, 1966). This principle applies to the mating paradigm for humans. In terms of judgments about sexual interest, a false positive error is made when an individual falsely concludes that a person of the opposite sex is sexually interested in them when that person of the opposite sex has no actual interest. sexual. This is sexual overperception because in this case there is an overestimation of sexual interest. A false negative error is made when an individual wrongly concludes that a person of the opposite sex is not interested in them sexually when that person of the opposite sex is actually interested in them. This is a sexual underperception (Henningsen & Henningsen, 2010). Haselton and Buss (2000) call these cognitive errors adaptive biases and suggest that they still remain present in humans today because they provided reproductive and survival advantages in the past. In ancestral societies, it was more costly for men to make a false negative error than to make a false positive error, because making a false negative error meant potentially missing a mating opportunity (Buss, 1994). In contrast, for ancestral women, it is less costly to make a false negative error than to make a false p...... middle of paper ......estosterone and physical risk taking in young men. Social Psychology and Personality Sciences, 1(1), 57-64. Roney, JR (2003). Effects of visual exposure to the opposite sex: Cognitive aspects of marital attraction in human men. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(3), 393-404. Stanovich, K.E. (2004). How to think clearly about psychology. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Sugiyama, L. (2005). Physical attractiveness from an adaptationist perspective. In Buss DM (Ed.) The handbook of evolutionary psychology (pp. 292–342). New York, NY: Wiley. Wang, Y. and Griskevicius, V. (2014). Conspicuous consumption, relationships and rivalries: women's luxury products as signals to other women. Journal of Consumer Research, 40(5), 834-854. Wilson, M. and Daly, M. (1985). Competitiveness, risk-taking and violence: the young man's syndrome. Ethology and sociobiology, 6, 59-73.