Do you favor or oppose homosexuals serving openly in the military? If you’re like the majority of Americans recently polled by the New York Times/CBS, odds are you oppose it. In fact, only 44% of participants responded in favor of the idea. Now what if I asked you exactly the same question using the label “gay men and lesbians” instead of “homosexuals”? Suddenly the tables have turned…and the ayes have it! Out of those who received this alternative wording, 58% were now in favor of this fundamentally
equivalent idea.
After this event, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology listserv lit up with discussion. Does the term homosexual trigger an “us” vs. “them” mentality? What if “gay men and lesbians” suggest a
politicized minority, invoking a civil rights frame among -hippie respondents? As a social psychologist, I am armed with a number of possible explanations for the survey discrepancy (which I’m also told appeared in the 2005 Gallup poll regarding employment discrimination). So I could easily trivialize this as another puzzle to solve in an endless string of academic navel-gazing. But sitting here in sunny California, where a mere 52% of voters recently stripped their fellow Americans of numerous civil rights, I’m thinking this matters a whole heck of a lot.
What a difference a label makes.
So what do I think is behind this result? I propose that a collection of people who are gay men and lesbians is simply not as easy to dehumanize as the social category of homosexuals. That is, while we are always quick to ascribe human characteristics – such as complex emotions, civility, and imagination -- to ourselves and those like us, we are not so eager to share this privileged status with those who are different from us. If you're restricting even what it essentially means to be human to "us", restricting "their" civil rights is just par for the course.
This restrictive tendency -- often called infrahumanization by Social Psychologists like myself -- appears all around us. For example, think about the last time you passed a homeless person on the street. According to one neuroimaging study, your brain may have reacted to him or her as if they were not fully human. That is, a part of the frontal cortex that is involved in processing social stimuli would have become engaged to about the same degree as it does when looking at a disgusting object (which is to say, not much at all).
Right about now you're probably thinking, that's terrible -- that's not me. Unfortunately, you are already complicit in this type if dehumanizing if you have ever watched a typical Disney feature-length animated movie. Setting any recent Black princesses from Louisiana aside, Disney and other cartoon film-makers have a pretty clear record when it comes to portraying non-White characters. And it ain't good. But, specific to my argument, Communications researchers and feminist psychologists alike have noted that African-American voice actors predominately portray animals and objects -- not people at all, and definitely not heroines.
This restrictive tendency -- often called infrahumanization by Social Psychologists like myself -- appears all around us. For example, think about the last time you passed a homeless person on the street. According to one neuroimaging study, your brain may have reacted to him or her as if they were not fully human. That is, a part of the frontal cortex that is involved in processing social stimuli would have become engaged to about the same degree as it does when looking at a disgusting object (which is to say, not much at all).
Right about now you're probably thinking, that's terrible -- that's not me. Unfortunately, you are already complicit in this type if dehumanizing if you have ever watched a typical Disney feature-length animated movie. Setting any recent Black princesses from Louisiana aside, Disney and other cartoon film-makers have a pretty clear record when it comes to portraying non-White characters. And it ain't good. But, specific to my argument, Communications researchers and feminist psychologists alike have noted that African-American voice actors predominately portray animals and objects -- not people at all, and definitely not heroines.
So what does all of this have to do with gays in the military? It appears that our psychology and our culture promote the dehumanization of members of other groups, including race, socioeconomic status, and yes, sexual orientation. We are now armed with this knowledge, and in 2005 and 2010 we have seen it acted out in national surveys that do inform the policy makers and the public about what the national consensus is on including gays in the military and other occupations. We must concern ourselves with the wording in these surveys, and especially on the ballot.
That job falls to all concerned voters, whatever "we" we happen to be a part of (i.e. the human race).
