Report Biases in Retrospective Studies
Although childhood gender nonconformity has been correlated to sexual orientation in adulthood, there may be a reporting bias that has influenced the results. Many of the studies on the link between CGN and sexual orientation are conducted retrospectively, meaning that adults are asked to reflect on their behaviours as children. Adults will often reinterpret their childhood behaviours in terms of their present conceptualizations of their gender identity and sexual orientation. Gay men and lesbian women who endorsed a biological perspective on gender and sexual orientation tended to report more instances of childhood gender nonconformity and explain these behaviours as early genetic or biological manifestations of their sexual orientation. Lesbian women who endorse a social constructionist perspective on gender identity often interpret their childhood GNC as an awareness of patriarchal norms and rejection of gender roles. Heterosexual men are more likely to downplay GNC, attributing their behaviours to being sensitive or artistic. Retrospective reinterpretation does not invalidate studies linking GNC and sexual orientation, but we need to be aware of how present conceptualization of gender identity and sexual orientation can effect perceptions of childhood.
Read more about this topic: Childhood Gender Nonconformity
Famous quotes containing the words report, biases and/or studies:
“If he had been sent to check out Bluebeard’s castle, he would have come back with a glowing report about the admirable condition of the cutlery.”
—Mary McGrory (b. 1918)
“A critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste.”
—Whitney Balliet (b. 1926)
“His life itself passes deeper in nature than the studies of the naturalist penetrate; himself a subject for the naturalist. The latter raises the moss and bark gently with his knife in search of insects; the former lays open logs to their core with his axe, and moss and bark fly far and wide. He gets his living by barking trees. Such a man has some right to fish, and I love to see nature carried out in him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)