The ‘gay’ voice stereotype and its consequences
Overview
Many people believe that it is possible to guess others’ sexual orientation from voice, the so-called auditory gaydar. Such gaydar judgments are likely to elicit stereotyping and stigmatisation in a variety of contexts (e.g., workplace, adoption decisions, teaching, health). In this line of research, we examine what are the beliefs that people have about voice as a cue of sexual orientation, what are the consequences of auditory gaydar judgments, and what are the experiences and coping strategies of those who are targets of such judgments.
We have also recently started to examine the use of agentic language as a ‘tool’ to buffer voice-based discrimination.
These last studies were funded by the European Association of Social Psychology Collaborative grant.
Researchers
Research conducted by members of the Psychology of Gender and Sexuality Lab.
Principal Investigator
Dr Fabio Fasoli
Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology
Biography
I received my PhD in 2011 from the University of Trento (Italy). After that, I held postdoctoral fellowships at CITEC/University of Bielefeld, the University of Padua, ISCTE-IUL, and the University of Milano-Bicocca. In October 2016, I joined the University of Surrey as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow and have been here ever since. I am the Programme Leader for the Social Psychology MSc, the co-director of the Sex, Gender, and Sexualities Research Centre, and the current Chair of the University Rainbow Network. I am also the Secretary of the International Association of Language and Social Psychology (IALSP)
