Homosexuality and Gay Dar

Introduction

Homosexuals have existed among heterosexuals since the beginnings of mankind. Yet, they are somehow different and not accepted by the norms of society. They are considered outcasts and shunned upon; even by the churches of today. Despite the progresses that we have made, our abilities to outcast and negatively judge people is still quite dominant and present in our everyday lives. The struggles of homosexuals can be compared to those of the African American people. The fight that they fight today is a fight that African American people fought not too long ago. African Americans had to deal with being different, they had to deal with being outcasts and they had to deal with hate crimes. This makes it more difficult to understand their hateful behaviour towards homosexuals. Of course, they are not the only race to discriminate against homosexuals. In general, humans have a great ability to repeat past mistakes and oppress those they do not understand or find different.

How different are homosexual people from heterosexual people? Can this difference be visibly spotted? People do have a belief that they can spot a homosexual person within a crowd. Now, if someone were to picture the stereotypical homosexual male or female the image is quite distinguishable. When people picture a female who is a lesbian, they usually see a woman with short hair who has very “manly” features. When they picture a gay man, they see a well dressed man with quite feminine features and actions and are generally more emotional.

These stereotypical images and questionable beliefs are what bring about new terms like the word “Gay-Dar”. This term is a play on the word radar. A Radar (Radio Detection and Ranging) system according to the scientific community is: “An instrument for determining the distance and direction to an object by measuring the time needed for radio signals to travel from the instrument to the object and back, and by measuring the angle through which the instrument’s antenna has traveled”. As most people know, Gay is a term used to describe homosexual persons. The word gay according to the dictionary originally meant: “Showing or characterized by cheerfulness and light-hearted excitement; merry”. However, the words meaning quickly changed when homosexuals began using it as code. They were thought of as clinically ill and were thought only to exist as homosexuals. The word "gay" gave them a smaller word that was an adjective, not a noun. This allowed those who used it to identify people as homosexual in addition to other identities. Some people use it to include bisexuals and lesbians. Now that bisexuals and lesbians are gaining a separate voice, it usually refers only to homosexual men.

The word Gay-Dar thus means to use one’s senses to detect or find a person who is a homosexual or use an intuitive sense that enables one to identify whether another person is gay or not. The word also has a synonym which is “Queer-Meter”. This only aids in the realization that the word is quite popular in order to have a synonym. The word Queer originally just meant strange or out of the ordinary. Today it is attached with a negative connotation referring to persons of homosexual nature. However, Queer-Meter is more popular in the eastern part of the world and not quite so predominant on this side of the world.

Consequently, Gay-Dar is a popular term used in North America by people to describe their inept ability to spot homosexual persons. The word has gained great popularity over the years and is now used quite commonly. The marketing department caught on quickly and decided to use the word to describe their new product, the Gay-Dar Direct. This is a device that homosexuals can carry with them on their key chains. When another Gay-Dar Direct is within range the two devices will begin to vibrate. This alerts the two parties that a person of similar nature is in the vicinity. Other sites include the word Gay-Dar in their website names and magazines use the name also. These devices, sites and magazines are quite popular amongst the homosexual community. These and other marketing ploys have increased the popularity of the word and spawned games based on the word.

There are several versions of the Gay-Dar game out there, on-line and in stores. The most popular of these games, is an on-line version of “How good is your Gay-Dar”. In this game players attempt to guess the sexual preference of males and females. Depending on the specific game played the number of people to select from and the gender does vary. Some games offer both male and female selections and some offer just one or the other. However, generally a person is shown random pictures of 10 males and 10 females and asked to make a guess on their sexual nature. In these games 50% of the people are actually homosexual. After the player has made all of their guesses they are given a score out of 100%.

Although the homosexual community is aware of the existence of the word Gay-Dar and quite often use it themselves, as is evident from their magazines and websites. The people who most often use the word are homophobic and use the word with a negative connotation. For example “Watch out…My Gay-Dar is going off, telling me there is a fag around here”.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Ergo, it is obvious that most people today have heard of the word Gay-Dar, but do they believe they have a Gay-Dar? Or more importantly, do they think they have the ability to use their Gay-Dar to detect homosexual persons? Lastly, is it really possible to use the Gay-Dar to detect homosexual people? These are the questions that this essay will attempt to answer.

Informal survey

A survey was conducted to answer a few of the questions mentioned above. The survey was administered among 12 people, two of whom are homosexual and 4 of them who are homophobic. Based on the results all the people surveyed, except one person, had heard of the word Gay-Dar and roughly knew its meaning. This goes to show that the word does have quite a wide range of popularity. However, keep in mind that the sample was not randomly selected, but given the fact that the word finds over 100,000 matches on Google, it is safe to assume the word is quite well known.

Most people who have heard of the word have heard it from a friend, co-worker, or family member. The term Gay-Dar spreads most commonly by word of mouth. Almost all of the people surveyed also thought the word was a “negative” word. The meaning that people attached to the word was not a polite one. One example given as the definition for where the person heard the word from and what it meant was: “cant remember. it means my ass is in danger from a fag hahhah”. So, do people believe in this word to really protect them from homosexuals, is it just immature entertainment, or is it something else?

Most people surveyed believed they could spot a homosexual person with an average of approximately 59%. Two of the participants who responded to the survey were homosexuals and they gave some of the most descriptive responses and were very clear in their answers. Yet, the two homosexual participants believe they had the ability to use a Gay-Dar. In fact, they believed they could guess correctly more than the heterosexuals could. With reference to the question, “Can you spot a homosexual and if you can, what percentage of the time would you be correct?”. The two homosexual participants responded 100% and 70% respectively, which were among the highest estimates made. This shows that the belief is not only shared among heterosexuals, but also homosexuals. This result was quite surprising and difficult to explain. The most probable cause may be attributed to the fact that people think they know their own kind more than anyone else does.

It also seemed that people who thought they had a great ability to spot homosexuals, were not pleased by their poor results on the on-line test. They attributed it to the fact that the test was not very fair. The majority of these people blamed the results on the fact that they only had pictures to judge from. They claimed that if they were able to interact with the person, their Gay-Dar would have been much more accurate. One person made a good point; they claimed that the whole idea of a Gay-Dar was to detect when a homosexual was close to them, not when someone in a picture was a homosexual. Unfortunately, it was not within the scope of this survey to remedy this situation. On the other hand, people who ranked close to or better than their estimated percentages in the on-line Gay-Dar game thought the game was fair.

The most common way to spot a homosexual male or female seemed to be their actions and speech patterns, along with the way they dressed and moved. People seem to place a heavy emphasis on things we normally stereotype. People claimed that homosexual males speak differently, dress nicer, cleaner and move in more feminine ways. Homosexual females can be spotted by mainly by their appearance. One of the most common factors mentioned was short hair, masculine actions and speech patterns. It seemed that the ability took advantage of mainly two senses; the sense of sight and the sense of hearing.

Given these results the survey did answer a few of the concerns about the belief, but not clearly enough to draw a concise conclusion from.

Popular press piece and related discussion

The piece that was most relevant to this discussion was a piece that was done by ABC News. They wrote an article that discusses the beliefs of people with regards to the Gay-Dar. The research was verified by Northwestern University psychology professor Michael Bailey. In this research they had dozens of people, including a deaf woman, interact with 10 men in a social atmosphere. During this interaction the participants were not allowed to ask any questions that related in any way to the 10 men’s sexuality.

They were told that 5 of the men were heterosexual and 5 were homosexual and were asked to discern which ones were homosexuals. At the end of the experiment, they were asked to explain their decisions and why they made them. They were also asked to relay what cues led them towards their decisions.

This research had quite a few similarities to the survey that was conducted, but also some differences. The participants in this research did not place as much emphasis on masculine and feminine behavioural traits amongst homosexuals as did the people in the survey. Since this experiment had more participants the results were also more spread out. They had people mention that homosexual men have higher eyebrows. This is something that was never mentioned in the survey.

However, there were some definite similarities. All the participants seem to place heavy emphasis on speech patterns and speech styles. They also seem to believe that homosexuals tend to have a “cleaner” appearance. Also during their experiments, the homosexual participants seemed to fair better at spotting the homosexual males than did the heterosexual participants. The homosexual participants claimed that they had to train their Gay-Dar’s in order to spot other homosexuals. Almost like a skill they use to find a partner; the better the skill the better their chance to find a partner.

Some interesting facts were also mentioned about celebrities that have been “in the closet” for years and have managed to fool the general public. Astonishing people when they finally decided to “come out of the closet”. This only goes to show that the Gay-Dar is definitely not perfect.

Nonetheless, in their experiment, the participants were able to spot 60% of the homosexuals. This is a better than chance result and so, Michael Bailey claims that the Gay-Dar definitely exists and that further research must be done to understanding this behaviour. Michael Bailey also makes claims that in his other experiments, he has consistently attained results of approximately 70% of the participants positively identifying the homosexual males. Then again, the details to his experiment are not available. Although, given the fact that he is a university professor is a good indication of the fact that his experiments are conducted properly.

On the most part, the results of this experiment agree with the results of the survey that was done. This is a good indicator that the results attained from the survey do represent the general public and make it easier to make an assessment based on these results.

Discussion of relevant cognitive factors

The three cognitive factors that are most relevant to this essay are the following: The tendency to seek confirmatory information, the problem of hidden or absent data, and focused and unfocused expectations.

The tendency to seek confirmatory information is when a person attempts to gather conforming evidence rather than evaluate the information properly. According to Thomas Gilovich, it occurs when “people tend to seek out information that would potentially confirm the belief, over information that might disconfirm it”

Based on the information gathered thus far, it seems that the problem of seeking confirmatory information plagues people when it comes to deciding whether they have a Gay-Dar or not. When looking through a website, the creator of the website has a poll on who thinks they have a Gay-Dar. If a person believes they have the ability to use their Gay-Dar, they simply submit that answer to the website and the site keeps track of the number of people who have said yes. On the other hand, there is no option to say “no”. It is quite clear that in this case the website creator is not concerned with disconfirming information.

Another example would be a personal experience. When someone thinks their Gay-Dar has spotted a homosexual person, they immediately seem to seek confirmatory information from a friend. For example, “Did you see that gay guy over there?” However, when the response is anything other than a positive or confirmatory one, the person is immediately on the defensive and begins to state why they believe the other person is in fact a homosexual.

The problem of hidden or absent data, occurs when a person makes some kind of assumption based on a belief they might have. Except that they never really have the information or may be missing a piece of the information that may prove their assumption to be false.

Obviously, a majority of the time that someone makes the assumption or accusation towards another person being a homosexual, due to their Gay-Dar using ability, they never usually find out whether they are wrong or right. Because, usually the assumption is made and presumed to be correct, since the enquiry is never directly posed to the individual in question. This type of absent data makes it almost impossible to truly judge the validity of the Gay-Dar and thus adds to the belief that the Gay-Dar must be working properly.

Lastly, the topic of focused and unfocused expectations is quite a wide topic, but the focus here is primarily on one-sided events, and being temporally focused or unfocused. A one-sided event is an event that a person will become aware of only if it impacts them in some way or if it brought to their attention. A prophetic dream is a great example of this. Since the person will not really be aware of the dream unless their predictions within the dream came true. If the person is aware of the event then it is temporally focused as opposed to temporally unfocused.

This is another common error in human reasoning that may support the belief of having a Gay-Dar. For example, someone might have suspected that Rosie O’Donnell was a homosexual female. Now, had Rosie O’Donnell never admitted publicly to being a homosexual, the person making the accusation may have never noticed and gone on believing that they were correct. They would have therefore been temporally unfocused. However, when Rosie O’Donnell came out and admitted publicly to being a homosexual, the person who originally made the assumption would receive conforming information through an event that is temporally focused. By the way, the same can be said for someone who assumed she was a heterosexual female.

These are a few of the cognitive factors that aid in the questionable belief of the Gay-Dar. As well as the reasons why people must learn to properly evaluate their information rather than seeking or gathering confirmatory information and ignoring disconfirming information.

Discussion of relevant social factors

The two social factors that are most relevant to this essay are the following: Mechanisms underlying self-serving beliefs and Informativeness.

A mechanism underlying self-serving beliefs is the fact that people are more likely to adopt self-serving beliefs about themselves and comforting beliefs about the world. It is the tendency to attribute success internally and failures externally.

With regards to the Gay-Dar quiz game, when people did badly on the quiz they immediately began to blame external factors. Claiming that the game was an unfair test and that they would have done better had they had the chance to interact with the participants. Although these points are quite valid, they still show how people have the tendency to blame external factors for their failures. Whereas, the people who faired quite well on the quiz, thought they did well based on their intuition or the ability of their Gay-Dar.

Informativeness is the likeliness of someone to alter the information portrayed in order to entertain. From personal experiences it is quite obvious that people boast about spotting homosexuals that are not open about their sexual preferences. These stories are sometimes exaggerated and tend to deviate from the truth in order to make the story more entertaining, but this does negatively affect the understanding that people have of the Gay-Dar. Since most people will claim their Gay-Dar is perfect, leading other people to falsely believe the same thing. Again, these are all factors that can be cured with education.

Description of an "ideal" test, or "thought experiment"

The ideal test would be quite simple to prove whether the Gay-Dar exists or not. The first thing to do would be to gather a large sample of homosexual people. These selected individuals would have to be people that DO NOT fit into the stereotypical homosexual images. Then one could select an equal number of heterosexual individuals and mix the samples. These samples that were selected would also have to be as random as possible, but must not be stereotypical. This group will be referred to as group A. Preferably everyone in group A should dress similarly.

The reason why they can not fit the stereotypical image, is because that is the only way to insure that a person does not base their judgement purely on appearances or speech patterns that are quite easily detectable in some individuals. But rather, they would have to use an intuitive sense that allows them to spot homosexuals that do not make the fact that they are gay quite obvious.

The scientists conducting the experiment should not be aware of the sexual preferences of the people selected; essentially a double blind experiment. Then a random sample of people (homosexual and heterosexual alike) who believe they can spot homosexuals through the use of a Gay-Dar should be selected to interact with the original group of people that is comprised of 50% homosexuals and 50% heterosexuals. This second group of choosers will be referred to as group B.

Group B should be monitored and any questions regarding sexual preference should be strictly prohibited. The individuals from group B must then be asked to make a selection as to whether they think the people from group A are heterosexual or homosexual. Their answers should be verified and tested to see if a greater than or less than chance average is attained. The experiment should be repeated several times and a conclusion made.

Discussion of how to prevent an erroneous belief

One of the main reasons why people believe that which is questionable, is because of the apparent evidence that might make something sound plausible, despite how unreliable that evidence might be. People tend to see what they believe and they find it difficult to question things they believe.

In order to inform people properly about Gay-Dar, they should read through this entire essay. That in itself would be a good start into truly understanding why the Gay-Dar is such a questionable belief. Also, people should take the Psychology 615 course on The Psychology of Everyday Beliefs and Skepticism. Since the value of scientific education is the most important factor in preventing erroneous beliefs.

Of course believing that one possesses the ability to spot a homosexual can be risky at times. For example, if a homosexual person approaches someone they are confident is homosexual, because of what their Gay-Dar tells them, they might be in for quite a surprise or maybe even embarrassment. The truth of the matter is that the existence of a Gay-Dar can not be proven. Based on research that has been done, There is no consistent data that shows a 100% ability to spot homosexuals.

Before anyone should embrace a questionable belief, they should make sure they have evaluated all the facts about the belief and not fallen prey to the cognitive and social factors mentioned above. The facts should be constantly reviewed with scrutiny and facts that disconfirm a belief should be focused upon with more emphasis than the information that is confirming.

Conclusion

Based on the information contained within this paper, it would seem that the majority of the population believes that they have a Gay-Dar and the ability to use it successfully to detect homosexual persons.

Nevertheless, the information above contradicts the fact that the Gay-Dar is a positive method for homosexual detection. In fact, the emphasis should not be place on the person that is making the assumption, but strictly on the person being accused. The argument being presented here is quite simple. Everyone would agree that if someone smiled and they were genuinely happy, it would be easy to spot. Whether that person was black, white, brown or purple, male or female, the smile on their face would be a good indication of their emotion. There are also people who wear a “fake” smile on their faces to fool others. Sometimes this can be spotted, but often it is unnoticed. Humans are naturally able to portray a self image by simply using their body language and expressions.

Therefore, could it not be possible that the homosexual males that are easy to spot, want to be spotted? Why is it that big time celebrities are able to fool millions of people for years? The fact is that people will show an image of themselves that they want others to see. This could explain why homosexual males alter their physical appearances and speech patterns to convey their sexual preferences. Why homosexual females choose to cut their hair short and act “manly”. Homosexuals might find it difficult to find partners and thus choose to alter their appearances and actions to make it easier to find a mate.

It all comes down to the fact that if a person who is a homosexual wanted to hide the fact that they were homosexual, there is a chance that no one would ever know. There is also a chance that someone would catch on, but the same can be said for a person who is smiling on the inside but sad on the outside.

Given these points it is quite reasonable to hypothesize that the Gay-Dar is no special ability or intuitive tool that is always correct. It is simply an observation that people make based on stereotypes that they have come to believe.

So, maybe the Gay-Dar does exist in some sense, but quintessentially it is just people observing that which is obvious.

Brief references

Websites: