Sunday, May 20, 2012

Gay Radar, Ability to Detect Someone Sexual Orientation


The more widespread type of sexual orientation encourages the need to have a "gaydar" (gay radar). Gaydar is a term widely used to assess the ability of the sexual orientation of others quickly.

According to research by Joshua Tabak, a graduate student in psychology at the University of Washington, Seattle, this capability has significant benefits.
Tabak asked 129 students to identify the social orientation of the 96 young women and men through the photograph. The result, 65 percent of participants can be identified lesbian / normal women and 57 percent of the participants can identify the gay / straight men of to-96 photo.


The faces in the photo was not wearing glasses or jewelry. All of them also do not have a scar, beard, mustache or former piercings.
But when the faces are displayed in reverse condition, participants performed the identification accuracy decreased to 61 percent for the lesbian / normal women and 53 percent for the gay / straight men. However, the accuracy rate was still higher than the identification made ​​by chance alone, researchers say.

The findings, published in the journal PLoS One suggests that many people who knowingly make a distinction against homosexuals and normal people.

"This is probably similar to how we do not have to think long to tell that person male or female, black or white. Such information will continue to face in our daily lives," he added as released from Health24.

Tabak claimed these findings challenge the theory that if people keep their sexual orientation is discrimination against gay, lesbian and bisexual would never exist. According to him, this is precisely the argument made ​​by people who do not agree with the anti-discrimination policy for the group.

Even so, Tabak not find a reason why some people have "gay radar" that are better than others. Tabak just assumed that "the people of the older generation or a different culture might grow up without ever interacting with a gay" so it is less accurate in identifying gay or normal person.