STUDY: Male Homophobes Secretly Like The Menz

Yet another study has concluded that men who openly say they are homophobic give themselves away under the unblinking eye of science. Literally unblinking, in their case. Mic reports:

Researchers at the University of Geneva tested 38 heterosexual male subjects by having them first rate their levels of “homonegativity” to determine how antigay each of them were. Then the men participated in a sneaky little series of photo experiments designed “to evaluate their impulsive approach tendencies toward homosexual stimuli.”

The first experiment involved showing the (again: straight male) subjects a series of images of straight or gay couples in the center of a computer screen, and then repeatedly moving a small human figure toward or away from the central image several times. The second test required the men to rate images of gay or straight couples while equipment monitored how long their gaze lingered on each picture.

Altogether, the tests revealed that “men with a high homonegativity score looked significantly longer at homosexual than at heterosexual photographs,” while the non-homophobic men skipped by them more casually, at a “neutral” pace.

See this latest study’s abstract here.