The Science of “Gaydar”: How Well Can We Detect Other People’s Sexual Orientatn?

Contents:

• THE TTH ABOUT ‘GAYDAR’
• THIS PSYCHOLOGIST’S “GAYDAR” REARCH MAK UNFORTABLE. THAT’S THE POT.
• GAYDAR: DO YOU HAVE IT?
• THE END OF GAYDAR
• HOW’S YOUR GAYDAR?
• THE SCIENCE OF “GAYDAR”: HOW WELL CAN WE DETECT OTHER PEOPLE’S SEXUAL ORIENTATN?
• GAYDAR: A SOCIAL-GNIVE ANALYSIS
• GAYDAR—SENDG MIXED SIGNALS
• IS ‘GAYDAR’ REALLY A THG?
• GAYDAR
• TT YOUR GAYDAR
• THE GAYDAR - HOW GAY ARE YOU?

THE TTH ABOUT ‘GAYDAR’

Stereotyp often fluence the imprsns, whether ’s that a black man is dangero, a woman won’t be a good lear or a fashnable man is gay.

Stereotyp related to gay men and lbians often operate unr the guise of “gaydar” rather than stereotypg. “Gaydar” (a portmante of “gay” and “radar”) is a term that first appeared the 1980s and refers to a “sixth sense” for intifyg who is gay.

THIS PSYCHOLOGIST’S “GAYDAR” REARCH MAK UNFORTABLE. THAT’S THE POT.

While many people believe stereotypg is wrong, llg “gaydar” merely provis a ver for g stereotypil tras – like someone’s fashn sense, profsn or hairstyle – to jump to nclns about someone beg gay. Nohels, some rearchers have published studi that, at first glance, appear to show that people have accurate gaydar. In some recent work, my lleagu and I have been able to monstrate how the perpetuatn of the gaydar myth has untend negative nsequenc.

My lleagu and I spected that even people who would normally try to rea om stereotypg might be more likely to e gay stereotyp if they are led to believe they have gaydar. We told some participants that scientific evince says gaydar was a real abily, led others to believe that gaydar is jt another term for stereotypg and said nothg about gaydar to a third group (the ntrol).

Participants then judged whether men were gay or straight based on rmatn ostensibly taken om social media profil. Some of the men had terts (or “lik”) that related to gay stereotyp, like fashn, shoppg or theater. This sign allowed to asss how often people jumped to the ncln that men were gay based on stereotypilly gay terts.

GAYDAR: DO YOU HAVE IT?

Those who were told gaydar is real stereotyped much more than the ntrol group, and participants stereotyped much ls when they had been told that gaydar is jt another term for stereotypg. The patterns provid strong support for the ia that belief gaydar enurag stereotypg by simply disguisg unr a different label. In some ways, the ia of gaydar – even if ’s jt stereotypg – seems eful at bt and harmls at worst.

THE END OF GAYDAR

Usg gaydar as a way to talk nocuoly or jokgly about stereotypg – “Oh, that guy sets off my gaydar” – trivializ stereotypg and mak seem like no big al.

Participants learned only one thg about this other person, eher that he was gay or simply liked shoppg (people tend to assume men who like shoppg are gay). In one ndn, therefore, the participants knew that the man was gay and the other they might have privately ferred that he was gay though wasn’t nfirmed, but that wasn’t known to anyone else (who might have acced them of beg prejudiced).

As we predicted, the vertly prejudiced people tend to rea om shockg the man who was nfirmed as gay, but livered extremely high levels of shocks to the man who liked shoppg. If they had shocked the first man, people uld acce them of prejudice (“You shocked him bee he was gay! But if others acced participants of prejudice the send ndn, uld be plsibly nied (“I didn’t thk he was gay!

HOW’S YOUR GAYDAR?

Enuragg stereotypg unr the guise of gaydar ntribut – directly or directly – to stereotypg’s downstream nsequenc. Some rearchers say that stereotyp about gay people posss a gra of tth, which uld lend crence to the ia of havg accurate gaydar.

In the studi, rearchers prented pictur, sound clips and vios of real gay and straight people to the participants, who then tegorized them as gay or straight.

THE SCIENCE OF “GAYDAR”: HOW WELL CAN WE DETECT OTHER PEOPLE’S SEXUAL ORIENTATN?

Half of the people the pictur, clips and vios were gay and half were straight, which meant that the participants would monstrate an accurate gaydar if their accuracy rate were signifintly higher than 50 percent.

Ined, participants tend to have about 60 percent accuracy, and the rearchers nclud that people really do posss an accurate gaydar. Many studi have replited the rults, wh their thors – and the media – toutg them as evince that gaydar exists.

GAYDAR: A SOCIAL-GNIVE ANALYSIS

But as we’ve been able to show two recent papers, all of the prev studi fall prey to a mathematil error that, when rrected, actually leads to the oppose ncln: Most of the time, gaydar will be highly accurate. There’s a problem the basic premise of the studi: Namely, havg a pool of people which 50 percent of the targets are gay.

In a world where 95 percent of people are straight, 60 percent accuracy means that for every 100 people, there will be 38 straight people rrectly assumed to be gay, but only three gay people rrectly tegorized.

GAYDAR—SENDG MIXED SIGNALS

Therefore, the 60 percent accuracy the lab studi translat to 93 percent accuracy for intifyg who is gay the real world (38 / [38 + 3] = 92. Even when people seem gay – and set off all the alarms on your gaydar – ’s far more likely that they’re straight. If you’re disappoted to learn that your gaydar might not operate as well as you thk do, there’s a quick fix: Rather than g to a snap judgment about people based on what they wear or how they talk, you’re probably better off jt askg them.

People talk about ‘gaydar’ as the abily to terme whether someone is gay based on their tun about the person. The wi-rangg fdgs suggt that gaydar n potentially pick up on everythg om one’s looks to movements to speech patterns.

IS ‘GAYDAR’ REALLY A THG?

In fact, when people are asked to thk refully before makg a sexualy judgment, gaydar actually be ls accurate. For stance, people who hold anti-gay views typilly perform worse gaydar studi; by ntrast, sexual mori and people who have more faiary. In a particularly fascatg study, rearchers found that women’s gaydar was more accurate when they were ovulatg than when they weren’t.

GAYDAR

Put another way, when women are at peak fertily, their abily to distguish men who are gay om those who are straight appears to improve.

Most studi of gaydar volve askg people to make eher/or judgments: is this person gay or is this person straight?

Also, when people are given the opportuny to gus a target’s sexualy on a spectm—a la the classic Ksey Sle—rather than makg eher/or cisns, gay and bisexual persons tend to be given pretty siar ratgs.

TT YOUR GAYDAR

This suggts that gaydar really only distguish heterosexual om non-heterosexual, meang don’t necsarily help when to makg more fe-graed termatns.

Overall, gaydar helps people make sexual orientatn ferenc that are better than chance gusg; however, they are far om perfect. Most gaydar studi are set up so that participants would be rrect 50% of the time were they to rely on chance gusg. Bottom le: The rearch nducted to date suggts that there is somethg to the ia of gaydar that people appear able to tuively terme others’ sexualy at levels greater than chance rponse to a variety of cu.

At the same time, though, gaydar is clearly an imperfect tool, and one that don’t necsarily appear sensive to the wi spectm of sexuali that exist. To figure out a pattern about what uld distguish a gay person’s face om a straight person’s. When choosg between a pair of photos, the rultg program accurately intified a gay man 81 percent of the time and a gay woman 71 percent of the time.

THE GAYDAR - HOW GAY ARE YOU?

More ntroversially, Kosski and Wang’s paper claimed that the program based s cisn on differenc facial stcture; that gay men’s fac were more feme and lbian women’s fac were more mascule. A smart person wh a puter and accs to the ter n judge sexual orientatn of anyone the world, or lns of people simultaneoly wh very ltle effort, which mak liv of homophob and opprsive regim jt a ty b more easy.

[Note: I should mentn, the “gaydar” mache Kosski created isn’t all that practil to e the real world. The algorhm was tted by analyzg pairs of photos, one of a straight person and one of a gay person.

Those who have the abily to divi the world to gay and non-gay are said to have gaydar, and you need not be gay to have . If you’re gay, then mak sense why you might want to know (support, romantic or sex partner, muny), but if you’re not, then ’s anyone’s gus.