Implicit and Explicit Responses to Male Gender Inversion Stereotype Violation: A Mouse-tracking Study

Gender inversion stereotypes characterize straight men as masculine and gay men as feminine. Because people automatically employ stereotypes to conserve cognitive resources, processing masculine gay and feminine straight targets might require more effort. I tested that possibility here by using a mouse-tracking task to examine how perceivers reported the sexual orientation of stereotypical (masculine straight and feminine gay) versus counterstereotypical (feminine straight and masculine gay) men. Results from two studies showed that stereotypes affect accurate identification of men’s sexual orientation in explicit but not implicit judgments: participants in Study 1 were less accurate in explicitly reporting the sexual orientation of counterstereotypical targets (especially feminine straight men) and participants in Study 2 were less accurate in explicitly reporting the sexual orientation of all gay targets, regardless of their stereotypicality. Stereotype-based expectations therefore affect perceptions of male sexual orientation, though additional research will need to further interrogate the nature of these stereotype-based errors.M.A