A number of weeks ago I made a post to this blog (of recycled material), expressing why I am opposed to the hasty use of the term homophobia ("Opposed to ‘Homophobia’"). In short, I said I felt is was a simplistic and perhaps unjust way to discount behavior and beliefs we may strongly disagree with. Whether or not our dislike of that behavior is for good reason, I felt and still largely feel that the use of pathologizing language is without good reason.
Why not diagnose as phobic all aversive and oppositional behavior? Because the underlying reasoning is defective, and because a term as serious as phobia should not be used to categorize a person or people with reckless abandon....
Language is a powerful tool. Sure, it would be nice if we could classify all behavior and persons we didn’t like as pathological, hence undeserving a legitimate place in the world. But it just isn’t that simple. Furthermore, by doing so we undermine a better understanding.
It is my belief that anti-homosexual behavior and belief has a number of causes, most of them cultural -- ignorance/inexperience and an acquired prejudice chief among these. An aversion to "strange" behavior may be part of it as well. Observations of chimpanzees have found that the will merciless attack one of their own that becomes partially paralyzed due to illness. Children in our own species will be verbally attacked, and worse, for so much as looking and dressing 'funny.'
I also speculate that there may be a "deeper," innately psychological element involved. It has been noted that men are much averse to the idea of homosexual men than they are to homosexual women. Why? Men are attracted to women (whether or not they recognize the women may "play for the other team"). Blame our genes. It makes good sense. Two women being frisky with one another -- well, what man would be put off by women behaving sexually? There's a chance a man could join in. Or so a part of the brain hopes. Better, yet, in such a scenario, there is no competition from another male.
But two guys getting frisky?! The heterosexual man's genes 'say,' "Hey, that ain't no party you want to get involved in . . . there's absolutely no future in if for me!"
This is certainly conjecture on my part. A grain of salt is warranted.
For the same set of reasons that most men are hyper-attuned to physical signs of sexual maturity of the female variety, they are also attuned to behavioral signs of sexual receptivity, and are attracted to these.
A shapely sweater, a flirtatious smile . . . . be still thine beating heart.
But wait! What if the behavior and the body don't mix? What if a male body is giving of behavioral signs normally attributed to adult females -- individuals the male's selfish genes perceive as potentially mate-worthy? This could be disastrous, sexual-reproduction-wise.
I also speculate that the human primate, an intensely social species, is also finely attuned to detecting deceit. If you are suckered and used by others, your own prosperity will suffer.
So to me, part of the knee-jerk male aversion to homosexual males (that can be overcome by education and learning) is akin to their brain blaring out this signal: "Warning, warning! Beware, something is wrong with that individual -- it looks like a male but is not behaving as one!"
Is that the case, or part of if? I wonder. Yet until I see supporting research, I'm not going to take it too seriously.
Meanwhile, other students and teachers of psychology have attributed an aversion to male homosexuality as Freud might. The claim that these men are actually afraid of something within themselves.
Could that be? Is there any good evidence for it? Because so many Freudian ideas have been found wanting (schizophrenia being caused by detached mothering, etc.), I have never given the idea much credit. But maybe I should change my tune. New research seems to suggest there may be something to the idea. Was I wrong to dismiss is?
In the news release,Is Some Homophobia Self-Phobia? I read these words by co-author Richard Ryan, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester:
The findings provide new empirical evidence to support the psychoanalytic theory that the fear, anxiety, and aversion that some seemingly heterosexual people hold toward gays and lesbians can grow out of their own repressed same-sex desires.
Wow. Could it be? As a vigilant skeptic, I wondered what type of data the conclusion was based upon.
Here are a few brief paragraphs detailing the methods and outcome:
To explore participants' explicit and implicit sexual attraction, the researchers measured the discrepancies between what people say about their sexual orientation and how they react during a split-second timed task. Students were shown words and pictures on a computer screen and asked to put these in "gay" or "straight" categories. Before each of the 50 trials, participants were subliminally primed with either the word "me" or "others" flashed on the screen for 35 milliseconds. They were then shown the words "gay," "straight," "homosexual," and "heterosexual" as well as pictures of straight and gay couples, and the computer tracked precisely their response times. A faster association of "me" with "gay" and a slower association of "me" with "straight" indicated an implicit gay orientation.
A second experiment, in which subjects were free to browse same-sex or opposite-sex photos, provided an additional measure of implicit sexual attraction.
Through a series of questionnaires, participants also reported on the type of parenting they experienced growing up, from authoritarian to democratic. Students were asked to agree or disagree with statements like: "I felt controlled and pressured in certain ways," and "I felt free to be who I am." For gauging the level of homophobia in a household, subjects responded to items like: "It would be upsetting for my mom to find out she was alone with a lesbian" or "My dad avoids gay men whenever possible."
Finally, the researcher measured participants' level of homophobia -- both overt, as expressed in questionnaires on social policy and beliefs, and implicit, as revealed in word-completion tasks. In the latter, students wrote down the first three words that came to mind, for example for the prompt "k i _ _." The study tracked the increase in the amount of aggressive words elicited after subliminally priming subjects with the word "gay" for 35 milliseconds....
[We discovered that] participants who reported themselves to be more heterosexual than their performance on the reaction time task indicated were most likely to react with hostility to gay others, the studies showed. That incongruence between implicit and explicit measures of sexual orientation predicted a variety of homophobic behaviors, including self-reported anti-gay attitudes, implicit hostility towards gays, endorsement of anti-gay policies, and discriminatory bias such as the assignment of harsher punishments for homosexuals, the authors conclude.
Now that's interesting. But while the experiment design was fairly ingenious, and may be telling us something about human 'psychodynamics,' I'm hesitant to accept that it provides solid evidence for the hypothesis that a repressed sexuality may underlie anti-homosexual attitudes and behavior.
Why? First, I don't know what the number of subjects was and how large the effect was. Crucial information. I'm also wary of verbal self-reports, such as in "my parents did this" [when I was a child]. They are are notoriously unreliable. No person is a perfect witness, even and perhaps especially when it comes to the events of their own life.
Second, the meaning of word associations via reaction time also strikes me as a bit of a reach. Is it not possible, for example, that a person could be aroused by tabooed behavior? Studies have shown, for example, that the vast majority of adolescents that get excited by violent video games never go on to commit violent crimes Is it possible that a significant number of the most enthusiastic game players score lower than average on their self-ratings of love of these games? Would we then conclude that they are repressing a desire? Or is it more complicated than that?
My guess is that the whole matter is more complicated than we care to admit. Does a repressed homosexuality play a role in antipathy displayed toward homosexuals? It might. But until I find more and better evidence supporting the hypothesis, my belief remains that the more salient variables include ignorance coupled with an acquired prejudice (by way of family, peers, and community). In other words, the matter seems more cultural than personally psycho-pathological.
It seems to me that science and salesmanship belong on opposite ends of a spectrum (the precise use of language spectrum?) To be an effective salesman (woman) you grandstand, you exaggerate, you paint with a broad brush, you aim to incite passion. The scientist actively behaving like a scientist, on the other extreme, sticks to the facts and appeals to the intellect. You can't trust passion.
That is why I find it a little perplexing when arguments are made for scientists to be better communicators of science -- some even scold them for not preaching their word better (religion and sales seem more naturally compatible, in my book).
But wait! No responsibility is given to the dumb audience that demands emotional pyrotechnics to spice up all intellectual insights they attempt to consume. And so, we are told, "Dumb down the science."
Bullocks. Sure, cultural change is more difficult and slow. And yes, there may be a middle ground. But still. Let's not ask scientists to be salesmen and saleswomen.
With that said, here is a cartoon by treelobsters.com that got me thinking about the topic. It is so spot-on it deserves to be singled out. Well done!
Groan. Why the trumpets, why the tinsel?! When discussing and disseminating science news, shouldn't we aspire to be, you know, a little more scientific?
The following release of a science finding strikes me as akin to having a party to celebrate sobriety.
I bet the headline that appeared on my screen last December elicits at least a small groan from most of you:
The mall as a sanctuary: Study finds holiday shopping outlets aren't just shrines to spending
Oh holy kazoos -- is that for real? Alas, it wasn't a parody or a joke. It was "science." In this case, the strongest of the science part was some actual data collected. That said, get ready for another, minor groan:
The researchers conducted 41 in-depth, in-home interviews with Muslims, Jews and Christians in the United States, Israel and Tunisia to examine consumers' behavior when their given religion represents either a majority, minority or immigrant faith.
That 41 number is kinda small, especially considering the three countries of origin and the three religions involved. How could you come to any type of reasonable conclusion from that sample? Not to mention questions about how the subjects were . . . recruited?
Are you ready for some of the actual "finding"? Put down any sharp object you may be holding, because if you slap your forehead you don't want to hurt yourself.
In countries where a religious group was in the majority, the researchers found that the dominant religion experienced "consumption mass hysteria," which led to consequences of debt, drunkenness and overeating.
Wait. Was this study a joke? Have I been duped into attempting to take something seriously that isn't serious? Sadly, it wasn't a joke. But fortunately, I wasn't duped. Were others?
What we have in this study is another case of a little bit of (poor) data being amplified into a supposedly revelatory finding.
Want your kids to be more pro-social? Quit building their self-esteem!
That might be one message a person could extract from a recent finding on personality attributes and self-less behavior. In the words of one of the study authors, Wade Rowatt -
"Our discovery here is that the understudied trait of humility predicts helpfulness." [source]
Hmm. Humble people don't generally consider themselves to be awesome. And yet they are more likely to do awesomely good deeds. At least good in terms of the greater good of a group. As for personally awesome deeds, well, you have to turn to American Idol to witness those. (!)
I have finally figured it out. To bring immediate gender equality to our society, all we need to do is to boost men's oxytocin levels while simultaneously boosting women's testosterone levels.
The Eurakalert headline tells it: Testosterone makes us less cooperative and more egocentric, study finds.
As the article relates, the hormone oxytocin has already been implicated in behaviors described as trusting/loyal/cooperative. Pro-social stuff. Meaning putting needs of the group ahead of your own -- traditionally considered (in our time/society and with tongue-in-cheek) as girly stuff.'
A new study has shown that giving female subjects testosterone supplements influenced their behavior toward a more selfish direction.
[H]igher levels of testosterone were associated with individuals behaving egocentrically and deciding in favour of their own selection over their partner's.
Son of bitch and culture-be-damned, we've got hormones circulating in our bodies that may predispose us to certain types of behaviors.
Of course, that is not to say that culture doesn't play a role. No, no, no. It certainly does -- even to the extent of actually influencing hormone levels. The point: culture isn't working with blank slate.
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