Stereotypical Disease Inferences From Gay/Lesbian Versus Heterosexual Voices

Abstract

Voice is a cue used to categorize speakers as members of social groups, including sexual orientation. We investigate the consequences of such voice-based categorization, showing that people infer stereotype-congruent disease likelihood on the basis of vocal information and without explicit information about the speaker’s sexual orientation. Study 1 and Study 2 reveal that participants attribute diseases to gay/lesbian and heterosexual men and women in line with stereotypes. Gay speakers were more likely to be associated with gay and female diseases, and lesbian speakers with male diseases. These findings demonstrate that likelihood to suffer from diseases is erroneously, but stereotypically, inferred from targets’ vocal information.