Contents:
- GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN MAY HAVE DIFFERENT FACIAL SHAP, NEW STUDY SUGGTS
- FACIAL HTS SHARPEN PEOPLE'S 'GAYDAR'
- THIS PSYCHOLOGIST’S “GAYDAR” REARCH MAK UNFORTABLE. THAT’S THE POT.
GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN MAY HAVE DIFFERENT FACIAL SHAP, NEW STUDY SUGGTS
Whout beg aware of , most people n accurately intify gay men by face aloneAlthough I've always wanted this particular superhuman power, I've never been very good at tectg other men's sexual orientatn. Fdgs om a recent study published the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, however, suggt I may be unrtimatg my gaydar abili.
The January 2008 study vtigated people's abily to intify homosexual men om pictur of their fac alone.
In an ial experiment, rearchers Nicholas Rule and Nali Ambady om Tufts Universy pesed onle datg s and refully selected 45 straight male fac and 45 gay male fac.
FACIAL HTS SHARPEN PEOPLE'S 'GAYDAR'
The 90 fac were then shown to 90 participants random orr, who were asked simply to judge the target's "probable sexual orientatn" (gay or straight) by prsg a button. Surprisgly, all participants (both men and women) sred above chance on this gaydar task, rrectly intifyg the gay fac.
Then, they did a send search to fd other Facebook ers who had posted photos of the gay men their own profile.
"Th, " the thors wrote, "by g photos of gay and straight dividuals that they themselv did not post, we were able to remove the fluence of self-prentatn and much of the potential selectn bias that may be prent photos om personal advertisements. Aga, the thors superimposed the male fac (this time 80 gay and 80 straight) onto a whe background.
THIS PSYCHOLOGIST’S “GAYDAR” REARCH MAK UNFORTABLE. THAT’S THE POT.
And even wh the more strgent ntrols, the participants were able to intify the gay fac at levels greater than chance—aga even on those trials where the fac were flickered on the screen for a mere 50 lisends. For example, when shown only the eye regn ("whout brows and cropped to the outer nthi so that not even "crow's-feet" were visible"), perceivers were amazgly still able to accurately intify a man as beg gay. Curly, most of the participants unrtimated their abily to intify gay fac om the featur alone.
That is to say, people seem to have honed and librated their gaydar whout knowg they've done so.