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Don't ask, don't tell? Does disclosure of gay identity affect partner performance?

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Abstract

Supporters of policies that force gay and lesbian individuals to conceal their sexual orientation in the workplace argue that working with openly gay individuals undermines performance. We examine this claim in two studies and find the opposite effect. Specifically, participants working with openly gay partners performed better on a cognitive task (i.e., a math test) and a sensory-motor task (i.e., a Wii shooting game) than individuals left to wonder about the sexual orientation of their partners. These results suggest that policies, such as “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” that introduce uncertainty into social interactions harm rather than protect performance.

Highlights

►Participants work with a gay confederate who discloses or conceals his sexual orientation. ►We measure participants' performance on cognitive and sensory motor tasks. ►Participants paired with an openly gay confederate perform better than participants paired with ambiguously gay confederate.

Introduction

To repeal a policy that has been successful to our military's troop unity and effectiveness is frankly absurd and thoughtless of congressional Democrats.

—Senator James Inhofe (Inhofe, 2010).

The preceding quotation refers to the U.S. Congress' repeal of the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy. This policy allowed gay individuals to serve in the military only if they did not disclose their sexual orientation. Senator Inhofe echoes one of the main arguments supporting this policy, namely, that having openly gay people serve in the military undermines performance of other soldiers. However, to date, there has been no empirical test of this claim. Would working with an openly gay individual undermine one's performance?

Section snippets

Intergroup interactions and performance

Based on the psychological research on intergroup interactions, it seems that performance might suffer. Research on intergroup interactions has focused mainly on interracial interactions and has found that White individuals interacting with Black partners monitor their behaviors to appear unprejudiced (Vorauer & Kumhyr, 2001), which depletes mental resources, lowering performance on cognitive tasks (Richeson & Shelton, 2007). For instance, Richeson & Shelton (2003) found that White participants

Concealable stigmatized identities and performance

Research on concealable stigmatized identities and performance has focused almost exclusively on the negative outcomes associated with concealing stigmatized identities on identity holders themselves (Pachankis, 2007, Smart and Wegner, 2000, Santuzzi and Ruscher, 2002). For example, individuals with an eating disorder asked to conceal this information experienced more intrusive eating-disordered thoughts than those who were not asked to conceal their eating disorder (Smart & Wegner, 1999).

Overview of studies

We conducted two studies to test whether disclosing gay identity improves performance of one's partner in a task. Study 1 examines whether participants working with openly gay partners perform better on a cognitive task than participants working with ambiguously gay partners. Study 2 examined whether participants working with openly gay partners performed better on a sensory-motor task than participants working with ambiguously gay partners.

Participants

Twenty-seven undergraduate men (age, M = 21.41, SD = 3.45) were recruited from a UCLA participant database.

Procedure

Participants were placed in a room with cubicles where they saw another participant waiting for the study. Participants were then told they would work with a partner on a task. Before meeting his partner, the participant filled out an information sheet, ostensibly to exchange with the partner to form a first impression. The participant was then given an information sheet that described his

Study 2

Study 2 was designed to examine whether the performance effect found in Study 1 is also present for sensory-motor performance on a task that requires sustained interaction. In Study 2, participants completed a shooting task using the Wii gaming system while paired with either an openly gay or ambiguously gay partner. We predicted performance on the shooting task would be higher for participants who were paired with an openly gay partner than for participants paired with an ambiguously gay

General discussion

Although those in favor of policies such as “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” argue that allowing gay individuals to serve openly hurts performance, the studies presented here find the opposite effect. Instead of harming performance, we find that individuals working with openly gay partners actually perform better on both cognitive and sensory-motor tasks than individuals left to wonder about the sexual orientation of their partners. These results suggest not knowing the identity of one's interaction

Acknowledgments

We thank the Shih Lab, Todd Pittinsky, Jenessa Shapiro and Miguel Unzueta for their assistance on this paper.

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