Evolutionary Psychology and LGBTQ+ Issues: A Qualitative Study of Queer Women’s Perspectives on Research Results

Abstract

This study examines reactions to a recent evolutionary psychology article that uses self-report data to claim that same-sex attraction in women evolved because men find it a desirable quality in a mate. Our study explores a novel perspective on the article by interviewing 29 women with attraction to women in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Participants read a news article about the original study, then the original article, and were then asked about their thoughts and feelings. Our research questions were as follows: 1) What cognitive and emotional reactions to the article do women with attraction to women experience? 2) Why did this article generate a lot of online criticism, from the perspective of women who are attracted to women? 3) Do papers like this cause women with attraction to women to change their opinions about psychological journals and/or psychological research? Using thematic analysis, we found seven themes: Negative emotion, identity threat, failure to address sociocultural explanations, male/hetero-centric, differences in paradigms, sensationalized news article, and contextualizing. The proliferation of articles like these represents one of many small stressors women attracted to women deal with as a minority population, and this stress can have important implications for health.