Although people can categorize others’ sexual orientation (e.g., gay/lesbian vs. straight) from their facial appearance, not everyone defines their sexual orientation categorically. Indeed, many individuals within the same sexual orientation category experience different degrees of own- and other-gender attraction. Moving beyond sexual orientation categories, we found that perceivers’ judgments of individuals’ sexual attraction correlated with those individuals’ self-reported degrees of attraction to women and men. Similar to past work on sexual orientation categories, facial affect cued sexual attraction in men whereas gender typicality cued sexual attraction in women. Moreover, asking participants to categorize the targets as ‘not straight’ versus ‘straight’ revealed a linear pattern distinct from the discrete category thresholds typical of other social groups (e.g., race). Facial appearance thus reveals nuances in sexual attraction that support sexual orientation categorizations. These findings refine understanding of social categorization more broadly.

中文翻译：

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超越类别：从面孔感知性吸引力

尽管人们可以根据面部外观对他人的性取向进行分类（例如，男同性恋/女同性恋与异性恋），但并不是每个人都会明确定义自己的性取向。事实上，同一性取向类别中的许多人都会经历不同程度的自己和其他性别的吸引力。超越性取向类别，我们发现感知者对个人性吸引力的判断与这些人自我报告的对女性和男性的吸引力程度相关。与过去关于性取向类别的研究类似，面部影响暗示了男性的性吸引力，而性别典型性暗示了女性的性吸引力。而且，要求参与者将目标分类为“非异性恋”与“异性恋”，揭示了一种与其他社会群体（例如种族）典型的离散类别阈值不同的线性模式。因此，面部外观揭示了支持性取向分类的性吸引力的细微差别。这些发现更广泛地完善了对社会分类的理解。