Automatic Social Categorization of Minimal Sexual Orientation Cues: An Evolutionary Psychological Perspective
Bildiriler > Özet Bildiri · 2021
Yazarlar: Sezer RENGİİYİLER, İbrahim Mert TEKÖZEL, Gülfem Sarı
15th European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association Conference, POLONYA, Krakow, Uluslararası, Poster, Özet Bildiri, 2021-2021, ss 116-116
Özet
<p><strong>Objective:</strong> The homosexual orientation paradox has attracted considerable attention from evolutionarily-minded</p><p>scientists. However, evolutionary psychological research about the perception of</p><p>sexual orientation seems insufficient. Thus, our study aimed to investigate whether the evolved</p><p>social mind prioritizes verbal sexual orientation cues as an implicit social categorization</p><p>criterion, and if so, which possible selection pressures might underlie this information-processing</p><p>mechanism.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Using the “Who-Said-What?” memory confusion paradigm, we created a group psychotherapy</p><p>context in which supposedly homosexual and heterosexual targets share their romantic</p><p>relationship issues. In this paradigm, whether targets’ statements referred to same-gender or</p><p>opposite-gender partners was the mere indicator of the sexual orientation. Perceivers’ task was</p><p>to recall who had said each of the statements, so two types of errors were possible to be made:</p><p>within-category error (e.g., confusing a homosexual target with another homosexual target) or</p><p>between-category error (e.g., confusing a heterosexual target with a homosexual target).</p><p><strong>Results:</strong> Results showed that (a) participants implicitly categorized the targets based on sexual</p><p>orientation via limited verbal cues, (b) female participants’ categorization levels were higher</p><p>than the males’, and (c) negative attributions toward homosexual targets did not influence the</p><p>categorization tendency.</p><p><strong>Conclusions:</strong> Our findings are compatible with the evolutionary psychological perspective offering that the</p><p>sensitivity for others’ sexual orientation might be due to its implications for intersexual</p><p>selection (e.g., to determine potential mates and regulate mating tactics) and intrasexual</p><p>competition (e.g., to identify potential rivals for mate competition). Sex differences in</p><p>categorization levels are also explicable given that the statements were presented in a longterm</p><p>relationship context and women’s greater choosiness for long-term mates.</p>