Abstract
A cross-sex shift model of human sexual orientation differences predicts that homosexual men should perform or score in the direction of heterosexual women, and homosexual women in the direction of heterosexual men, in behavioral domains such as cognition and personality. In order to test whether homosexual men and women’s cognitive performance was closer to that of heterosexual men or that of heterosexual women (i.e., sex-atypical for their sex and closer to that of the opposite-sex), we conducted a multivariate meta-analysis based on data from our previous meta-analysis (Xu, Norton, & Rahman, 2017). A subset of this data was used and comprised 30 articles (and 2 unpublished datasets) and 244,434 participants. The multivariate meta-analysis revealed that homosexual men were sex-atypical in mental rotation (Hedges’ g = −0.36) and the water level test (Hedges’ g = −0.55). In mental rotation, homosexual men were in-between heterosexual men and women. There was no significant group difference on spatial location memory. Homosexual men were also sex-atypical on male-favoring spatial-related tasks (Hedges’ g = −0.54), and female-favoring spatial-related tasks (Hedges’ g = 0.38). Homosexual women tended to be sex-typical (similar to heterosexual women). There were no significant group differences on male-favoring “other” tasks or female-favoring verbal-related tasks. Heterosexual men and women differed significantly on female-favoring “other” tasks. These results support the cross-sex shift hypothesis which predicts that homosexual men perform in the direction of heterosexual women in sex differentiated cognitive domains. However, the type of task and cognitive domain tested is critical.
Highlights
We conducted a meta-analysis to test the relationship between sexual orientation and cognitive performance on tasks that show normative sex differences (Xu, Norton, & Rahman, 2017)
This was motivated by the cross-sex shift model of sexual orientation differences which predicts that homosexual men should behave more like heterosexual women than heterosexual men do, and homosexual women behave more like heterosexual men than heterosexual women do, in sex differentiated domains such as cognitive ability
Homosexual men were sex-atypical in studies measuring mental rotations, the water level test, male-favoring spatial-related tasks, and female-favoring spatial-related tasks
Summary
We conducted a meta-analysis to test the relationship between sexual orientation and cognitive performance on tasks that show normative sex differences (Xu, Norton, & Rahman, 2017). The pattern of effect sizes found (ranging from small to medium) appeared to support the notion that homosexual These findings may be important for causal models of sexual orientation development, such as the prenatal androgen theory. Our effect sizes could not tell us whether homosexual men or women’s cognitive performances were closer to that of heterosexual men or that of heterosexual women They could be clearly inferred from the patterns reported and by comparing those to prior meta-analytic findings concerning normative sex differences in the relevant cognitive task or domain (e.g., Hyde & Linn, 1988; Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995). Note we did not test for other moderators (age, education level, and exclusivity of sexual orientation) because these showed no or very small effects in our prior meta-analysis
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