Gaydar (a portmanteau of gay and radar) is the intuitive ability to determinewhether another person is gay (homosexual), or straight (heterosexual). The function of “gaydar” relies on non-verbal sensory information and intuitions. These include the sensitivity to social behaviour and mannerisms: for example; a sensitivity to flamboyant or overt rejection of traditional gender roles (including occupation and grooming habits). — Wikipedia
Most people, gay or straight, may have a gaydar. You read that right, whether you are of our kind or not, you too may have a gaydar.
Psychologists Nalini Ambady and Nicholas Rule (Tufts University, Massachusetts) recently conducted a study showing men and women photos of 90 faces belonging to gay men and heterosexual men in intervals of 33 to 100 milliseconds. The participants of the study had to identify whether the man in the photo was gay or straight. When they were given 100 milliseconds or more to view a face, the participants correctly identified the sexual orientation of the men in the photos 70% of the time.
Volunteers were less accurate at shorter durations, and their accuracy did not get better at durations beyond 100 milliseconds, the team reports in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. “What is most interesting is that increased exposure time did not improve the results,” says Ambady. [source]
David Kenny, a psychologist from the University of Connecticut, Storrs, said that the findings demonstrates the brain’s remarkable ability to make fast yet accurate appraisals. This reminds me of thin slicing - the stuff that best-selling author Malcom Gladwell was talking about in his book, Blink (incidentally, I am currently reading Blank, a parody of Blink!).
This is just one study but I’m sure this will spawn a million more studies related, if not similar, to finding out the accuracy of one’s gaydar.
Do you have a gaydar? Is it trusty or rusty?
