Ecological Invalidity of Existing Gaydar Research: In-Lab Accuracy Translates to Real-World Inaccuracy: Response to Rule, Johnson, & Freeman (2016)

Abstract

In recent years, several empirical studies have claimed to provide evidence in support of the popular folk notion that people possess “gaydar” that enables them to accurately identify who is gay or lesbian (Rule, Johnson, & Freeman, 2016). This conclusion is limited to artificial lab settings, however, and when translated to real-world settings this work itself provides evidence that people’s judgments about who is gay/lesbian are not pragmatically accurate. We also briefly review evidence related to the consequences of perpetuating the idea of gaydar (i.e., “the gaydar myth”). Although past claims about accurate orientation perception are misleading, the work that gave rise to those claims can nevertheless inform the literature in meaningful ways. We offer some recommendations for how the evidence in past “gaydar” research can be reappraised to inform our understanding of social perception and group similarities/differences.

Notes

¹ We crafted our example with gay and straight men, for simplicity and to match the majority of past work reporting to demonstrate accurate gaydar. The same mathematical principles and conclusions apply, however, to studies about categorization of lesbian and straight women, and to the rare studies that examine bisexual categorization.

² This mathematical reasoning involves a basic application of Bayes’s theorem, which is necessary for understanding probabilities and accuracy (Hooper, 2013; McGrayne, 2011).

³ This research objective brings with it many other potential difficulties to consider, most especially representative sampling of sexual minorities (Harry, 1986).