Just in case anyone here isn't familiar with the idea of gaydar, it's the idea that people can easily pinpoint whether or not someone is gay from quick observations alone. It's pretty commonly used for the sake of small talk and jokes (my favorite example), but surely there can't be that much truth to it, right? I mean, it's just ridiculous.
Well...
You read it here: gaydar, in a sense, does actually exist (and scientific papers have no sophisticated euphemism for it, apparently). There are enough subtle differences in the facial structures of homosexuals to generally distinguish them from other people. This is now a scientifically recognized fact.
Now, I'm sure this all sounds a bit ridiculous. "Come on, Gahars, are you seriously telling me that researchers devoted time and energy to prove that gaydar, of all things, exists? What a waste! Also, what makes you so perfect and wonderful?" To which I respond, "No, wait, there's good reasoning behind it! And hey, I'm just like everyone else; I put my pants on one arm at a time."
As the article goes on to mention, this research shows that policies keeping homosexuals in the closet (like "Don't Ask, Don't Tell") are fundamentally flawed and ineffective. Keeping them in place, then, is more than just morally objectionable.
Well, there's something you tell your friends. "Gaydar: It's science now!"
Well...
The New York TimesOur research, published recently in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, shows that gaydar is indeed real and that its accuracy is driven by sensitivity to individual facial features as well as the spatial relationships among facial features.
We conducted experiments in which participants viewed facial photographs of men and women and then categorized each face as gay or straight. The photographs were seen very briefly, for 50 milliseconds, which was long enough for participants to know they’d seen a face, but probably not long enough to feel they knew much more. In addition, the photos were mostly devoid of cultural cues: hairstyles were digitally removed, and no faces had makeup, piercings, eyeglasses or tattoos.
Even when viewing such bare faces so briefly, participants demonstrated an ability to identify sexual orientation: overall, gaydar judgments were about 60 percent accurate.
Since chance guessing would yield 50 percent accuracy, 60 percent might not seem impressive. But the effect is statistically significant — several times above the margin of error. Furthermore, the effect has been highly replicable: we ourselves have consistently discovered such effects in more than a dozen experiments, and our gaydar research was inspired by the work of the social psychologist Nicholas Rule, who has published on the gaydar phenomenon numerous times in the past few years.
You read it here: gaydar, in a sense, does actually exist (and scientific papers have no sophisticated euphemism for it, apparently). There are enough subtle differences in the facial structures of homosexuals to generally distinguish them from other people. This is now a scientifically recognized fact.
Now, I'm sure this all sounds a bit ridiculous. "Come on, Gahars, are you seriously telling me that researchers devoted time and energy to prove that gaydar, of all things, exists? What a waste! Also, what makes you so perfect and wonderful?" To which I respond, "No, wait, there's good reasoning behind it! And hey, I'm just like everyone else; I put my pants on one arm at a time."
As the article goes on to mention, this research shows that policies keeping homosexuals in the closet (like "Don't Ask, Don't Tell") are fundamentally flawed and ineffective. Keeping them in place, then, is more than just morally objectionable.
Well, there's something you tell your friends. "Gaydar: It's science now!"