Straight Until Proven Gay: A Systematic Bias Toward Straight Categorizations in Sexual Orientation Judgments

• Published in: Journal of personality and social psychology 2016-06, Vol.110 (6), p.801-817
• Main Authors: Lick, David J, Johnson, Kerri L
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Bias; Classification (Cognitive Process); Facial Recognition; Female; Femininity; Gays & lesbians; Heterosexuality; Homosexuality; Homosexuality (Attitudes Toward); Human; Humans; Judgment; Male; Masculinity; Response Bias; Sexual Orientation; Social Perception; Studies
• ISSN: 0022-3514; 1939-1315
• DOI: 10.1037/pspa0000052

Perceivers achieve above chance accuracy judging others' sexual orientations, but they also exhibit a notable response bias by categorizing most targets as straight rather than gay. Although a straight categorization bias is evident in many published reports, it has never been the focus of systematic inquiry. The current studies therefore document this bias and test the mechanisms that produce it. Studies 1-3 revealed the straight categorization bias cannot be explained entirely by perceivers' attempts to match categorizations to the number of gay targets in a stimulus set. Although perceivers were somewhat sensitive to base rate information, their tendency to categorize targets as straight persisted when they believed each target had a 50% chance of being gay (Study 1), received explicit information about the base rate of gay targets in a stimulus set (Study 2), and encountered stimulus sets with varying base rates of gay targets (Study 3). The remaining studies tested an alternate mechanism for the bias based upon perceivers' use of gender heuristics when judging sexual orientation. Specifically, Study 4 revealed the range of gendered cues compelling gay judgments is smaller than the range of gendered cues compelling straight judgments despite participants' acknowledgment of equal base rates for gay and straight targets. Study 5 highlighted perceptual experience as a cause of this imbalance: Exposing perceivers to hyper-gendered faces (e.g., masculine men) expanded the range of gendered cues compelling gay categorizations. Study 6 linked this observation to our initial studies by demonstrating that visual exposure to hyper-gendered faces reduced the magnitude of the straight categorization bias. Collectively, these studies provide systematic evidence of a response bias in sexual orientation categorization and offer new insights into the mechanisms that produce it.