Gaydar is an unspoken intuition that helps people recognize the sexuality of another person. But is gaydar real? The Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison conducted a new study to find out.<\/p>\n
In the study researchers told one\u00a0group\u00a0of participants that gaydar\u00a0was real. They told another group that it was a\u00a0term for stereotyping. And to\u00a0a third group, they mentioned nothing.<\/p>\n
Social media profiles were then shown to participants and they judged whether they thought these men were gay or straight based on information from their profiles.<\/p>\n
On the men\u2019s profiles some had interests related to gay stereotypes, like fashion, shopping or theater. Other profiles had interests related to straight stereotypes like hunting, sports or cars.<\/p>\n
This allowed researchers to assess how often people jumped to the conclusion that men were gay based on stereotypical gay interests.<\/p>\n
Those who were told gaydar is real stereotyped much more than the control group, and participants stereotyped much less when they had been told that gaydar is just another term for stereotyping.<\/p>\n
Researchers found that these patterns provided strong support for the idea that belief in gaydar encourages stereotyping by simply disguising it under a different label.<\/p>\n
Assistant scientist William Cox concluded: \u201cEven when people seem gay \u2013 and set off all the alarms on your gaydar \u2013 it\u2019s far more likely that they\u2019re straight. More straight people will seem to be gay than there are actual gay people in total.\u201d<\/p>\n