Gender (Conformity) Matters: Cross-Dimensional and Cross-Modal Associations in Sexual Orientation Perception

Although sexual orientation (SO) is perceptually ambiguous, people are able to detect it with above-chance accuracy from faces and, sometimes, from voices. Despite a multitude of “gaydar” studies, it is unclear (1) whether vocal or facial signals carry more SO information, (2) whether raters refer to target’s SO instead of gender-role conformity when forming SO impressions, and (3) whether there are any differences for female and male targets. We collected face photographs, voice recordings, and self-reported gender-role conformity of 18 lesbian/gay and straight female and male target persons each. Study 1 (rating of SO) showed that faces led to higher accuracies than voices, which was especially true for female targets. Study 2 (rating of gender-role conformity) showed that the link between self-reported and attributed SO was mediated by self-reported and attributed gender-role conformity. Results support the centrality of gender-role conformity, more than that of SO, in impression formation.