Abstract
Individuals often use minimal cues such as gait, face, gestures and voice to categorise others' sexual orientation, a process known as making gaydar judgments. However, it remains unclear whether these judgments change over time, particularly as a function of personal information sharing. In this study, we examined whether heterosexual and sexual minority men made accurate gaydar judgments and whether these judgments changed during the process of getting to know the person. Participants watched videos of men who self-identified as either gay or straight and judged their sexual orientation. They did so first after observing them walking into a room, reading a written text and describing a given image, and then again seeing and hearing them talk about their personal experiences. Next, participants rated the perceived masculinity of the targets based on their gait, gesture, and voice and indicated how informative different minimal cues were for their gaydar judgments. Results showed that accuracy was higher for straight than gay targets. However, in the phase where targets talked about personal information, participants were more likely to categorise the gay targets as such. These effects emerged regardless of the raters' sexual orientation. Gay targets were perceived as less masculine than straight targets and perceived masculinity based on gestures was particularly relevant for differentiating gay and straight targets. These findings highlight the dynamic nature of gaydar judgments, suggesting that, as individuals share more personal information, perceptions shift and masculinity plays a role in making such judgments.