by Thomas Landess
Evelyn Hooker has
been among the most influential figures in the highly successful movement to
convince the American people that homosexuality is a "normal variant"
of human sexual behavior. Her 1957 study, "The Adjustment of the Male
Overt Homosexual" (Journal of Projective Techniques, 1957, 21,
18-31) is the most frequently cited scientific source for the argument that
homosexuality is not a pathology, that homosexuals are as free from mental
disorder as heterosexuals.
Such assertions
have not only found their way into standard psychology textbooks but have also
provided a scientific basis for decisions in major court cases involving the
legality of state sodomy laws and prohibitions against homosexual employment in
certain state and local agencies (e.g., schools, police departments). Indeed,
when the American Psychiatric Association debated the issue of homosexuality in
1973, Evelyn Hooker's work was Exhibit A for those who wanted to remove
homosexuality from the group's list of mental disorders.
For many
commentators and activists, the Hooker study effectively ended the debate over
whether or not homosexuals were in any way abnormal in their relationships with
each other and with the community at large. Today many Americans have accepted
the idea that homosexuality is "normal" and "healthy"
without realizing that such an opinion is derived in large measure from a
single study -- one conducted by a UCLA professor whose previous laboratory
subjects had been rats.
In all this
extravagant homage to Hooker and her study, several points have escaped her
admirers, to say nothing of the federal courts:
1. In her 1957
report, Evelyn Hooker did not use a random sample to test the stability of
homosexuals, but allowed gay rights activists to recruit those homosexuals most
likely to illustrate her thesis that homosexuality is not a pathology. Individuals
who proved unstable were deleted from the final sample.
2. Hooker's
published account of how she recruited heterosexual subjects is not consistent
with a more detailed later account.
3. Six subjects in
her study, three from each group, had engaged in both homosexual and
heterosexual behavior beyond adolescence.
4. Hooker made
several errors in her mathematical calculations that raise doubts about her
care and competence as a researcher.
5. Hooker did not
attempt to prove that homosexuals were normal in every way, nor does her study
support the idea that homosexuals as a group are just as stable as
heterosexuals.
6. Hooker was
relatively inexperienced in administering the Rorschach test, and this inexperience
may have led to mistakes in the administration and evaluation of the Rorschach.
7. On the
Thematic Apperception Test and the Make-A-Picture-Story test -- which require
subjects to make up fictional narratives about depicted scenes -- the homosexuals
could not refrain from including homosexual fantasies in their imaginary
accounts. For that reason, Hooker altered the nature of the study by no longer
asking the judges to use the TAT and MAPS in an attempt to determine the sexual
orientation of each of the 60 subjects, since the differences were apparent
from the narratives.
In order to
understand fully the nature of the controversy over Hooker's study, it is
helpful to review its history.
Evelyn Hooker did
not begin her research on homosexuals as a logical development in her career as
a psychologist or even out of a dispassionate scientific curiosity. From all
indications, she undertook the study to prove that homosexuals could function
as normal human beings. As she herself said, "How could my hypothesis have
been anything else? I'd seen these men and saw nothing psychopathological in
their behavior."[1]
"These
men" were the many friends she'd made in the Los Angeles homosexual
community -- one of whom, Sam From, persuaded her to undertake the
investigation. "Now we have let you see us as we are," he said to the
UCLA professor. "It is your scientific duty to do a study of people like
us."[2] Despite the fact that she was a "rat runner" -- with no
clinical experience in the area of human behavior, she undertook her study,
which would become, along with the Kinsey report, a prime weapon in the hands
of the gay rights movement.
It is important
to examine carefully the manner in which Hooker planned and executed her research,
which was funded by the federal government's National Institute of Mental
Health. A number of commentators have failed to read Hooker's own report
carefully or else have deliberately distorted her methods and findings for
their own purposes. Here is just how she proceeded and what she found.
First, to find
her homosexual subjects, she enlisted the early gay rights group Mattachine
Society, which, as she put it in her published report, "has as its stated
purpose the development of a homosexual ethic...."[3] Members of the
Mattachine Society volunteered for the study and also recruited their friends. Hooker,
herself, created a "control group" of heterosexuals for the
experiment, despite the fact that on the standardized tests she intended to
use, norms had already been established.
In her 1957
report, Hooker offers this somewhat cryptic explanation of heterosexual
recruitment:
Because the
heterosexuals were, for the most part, obtained from community organizations
which must remain anonymous, I cannot describe further the way in which they
were obtained.[4]
Years later, a Los
Angeles Times reporter elicited from Hooker a somewhat different
explanation, one that is fairly explicit in detail:
She canvassed the
education secretaries of labor unions, thinking that they would have liberal
attitudes. "I was wrong," she says; as soon as she explained the
nature of the study, no one wanted to participate...So Hooker took to collaring
candidates wherever she could find them, including a fireman who showed up to
inspect her home. "No man is safe on Saltair Street," joked her
husband.[5]
She did not
insist on a random sampling. In fact, she deliberately sought out only those
subjects who seemed stable and "normal" -- at least in their ability
to adjust to their social environment. She defined the criteria for membership
in the groups as follows:
In both groups
subjects were eliminated who were in therapy at the time. If, in the
preliminary screening, evidence of considerable disturbance appeared, the
individual was eliminated (5 heterosexuals; 5 homosexuals).[6]
As for the sexual
proclivities of the participants, Hooker says the following in her report:
I attempted to
secure homosexuals who would be pure for homosexuality; that is, without
heterosexual experience. With three exceptions this is so. These three subjects
had not had more than three heterosexual experiences, and they identified
themselves as homosexual in their patterns of desire and behavior. The
heterosexual group is exclusively heterosexual beyond the adolescent period,
with three exceptions; these three had had a single homosexual experience
each.[7]
Originally, she
chose 40 homosexual subjects and matched them as closely as possible by age,
IQ, and education with 40 heterosexual subjects. At some point, as noted
parenthetically above, she found five from each group too unbalanced to include
in her study, so apparently she dropped these ten and their matches in the
opposite groups -- for a total of 20 eliminated. This winnowing process reduced
the size of the total pool from 80 to 60.
It is instructive
to read her summary of these matchings and then compare that summary to the
chart containing the same information.
The homosexuals,
and thus the heterosexuals, ranged in age from 25 to 50, with an average age of
34.5 for the homosexual group and 36.6 for the heterosexual group. The IQ
range, as measured by the Otis Self-Administering Tests of Mental Ability, was
from 90 to 135, with an average for the homosexual group of 115.4 and for the
heterosexual group of 116.2. In education the range was from completion of
grammar school to the equivalent of a master's degree, with an average for the
homosexual group of 13.9 years and for the heterosexual group of 14.3.[8]
Turning to the
table upon which she lists the age, IQ scores, and education of all 60
subjects, a careful reader finds that the figures neatly arranged in columns contradict
her summary. While she says the age range for all subjects is 25-50, the
chart indicates that the youngest subject is 26 and the oldest 57. The figures
on the table indicate an average age of 35 for the homosexuals and 37 for the
heterosexuals -- different averages than the ones Hooker gives.
In her summary,
she says the range of IQ scores is 90-135, but the lowest IQ score on her chart
is 91. Despite this error, however, her averages for both homosexuals and
heterosexuals are consistent with the chart.
On average years
of education, she gives as a range the completion of grammar school to the
equivalent of a masters degree. Here her summary is at best imprecise, since
the least amount of education is 9 years -- past the junior high level and
three years beyond elementary school. The highest educational level indicated
on the chart is 18 years, which is a year beyond the course requirement for
most master's programs. Also, her average education for homosexuals, based on
the chart, should be 14.0 rather than 13.9.
These
mathematical discrepancies are minor but disturbing. If all the averages had
been incorrect, a generous reader might have concluded that somehow she had
printed the wrong chart -- a single careless error. But given the accuracy of some
of her calculations, it seems more likely she made several careless errors. A
footnote on the first page of the Hooker report suggests that the materials
were rushed into print -- that, though she hesitated to publish her paper,
"[i]n view of the importance of her findings it seemed desirable to the
editors that they be made public...."[9] (In other words, she was saying
something that well-placed members of the profession wanted to hear.)
To be sure, these
figures are largely irrelevant to the final conclusions of her study. The
averages of ages, IQ scores, and amount of education lend only marginal
credibility to the selection process. Yet the inaccuracies tell us something
important about Hooker's reliability as a researcher, the degree to which we
can trust her methodology. As noted below, Hooker scored the Rorschach test
herself, despite the fact that she had had little previous experience in this
area. Add to this inexperience a lack of mathematical precision, and the study
begins to pose genuine problems.
At this point,
two observations are in order concerning Hooker's overall method of selecting
her subjects. First, in choosing a small sample that is anything but random,
Hooker has declined to test the proposition that homosexuals and heterosexuals
in society are equally likely to be normal, well-adjusted human beings. As she,
herself, says in the report, she is only interested in "whether
homosexuality is necessarily [emphasis added] a symptom of
pathology." To answer that question, she maintains, "All we need is a
single case in which the answer is negative."[10] In other words, in this
study she is concerned with finding at least one homosexual who, after testing,
doesn't fall into the category of "pathological." This is why she has
focused on the healthiest possible cohort.
But the limited
scope of her study cuts two ways. Knowing the nature of the sample, no one
could reasonably conclude from her findings that homosexuals as a group are no
more likely to be mentally disturbed than heterosexuals. Yet this is precisely
what many have concluded. If one accepts the study as valid and definitive, one
can only conclude that some homosexuals are not pathological in their
dealings with the world at large. As Hooker herself observes, there is no
evidence to conclude that homosexuals are not pathological in their sexual
activities.
A second point to
note about Hooker's selection process is her ease in recruiting homosexual
subjects and her difficulty in recruiting heterosexual subjects. Indeed, her
account in the study report is evasive; and her later recollections suggest
that she may have shaded the truth initially in order to cover up problems she
encountered in recruiting the control group.
This question
becomes more pressing when one reads that in her group of 30 heterosexual men,
she still must include three who have had homosexual experiences in their
adult lives -- by no means a "pure" sample -- and we don't know
how many more had had homosexual experiences in adolescence. No one -- not even
Kinsey -- would call this an unambiguously heterosexual group.
From Hooker's own
report -- and from a follow-up interview in later years -- we see that
homosexuals were not only eager to participate, but indeed were the instigators
of the study. They hoped that it would prove they were "normal" human
beings; so they scoured their own community to find just the right volunteers
to prove her limited hypothesis. When analyzing the results of the Hooker
study, it's very important to remember who instigated the project and the fact
that the subjects were well aware of its ultimate goal. (In light of this fact,
the performance of homosexuals on two of the three tests, as discussed below,
may well indicate that homosexuality generates social behavior that is
obsessive, indeed all but uncontrollable -- certainly one indication of
pathology.)
To prove her
thesis, Hooker administered three standardized tests to her 60 subjects -- the
Rorschach Test, the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), and the
Make-A-Picture-Story test (MAPS). The Rorschach test, as most people know, consists
of a series of ink blots that subjects are asked to interpret. The Thematic
Apperception Test requires subjects to describe and make up stories about
pictures of people in various settings. The MAPS test requires subjects to
arrange cut-out pictures and then make up a story about their arrangement.
Despite her lack
of clinical experience in what is called "projective techniques,"
according to Hooker, she administered and scored the Rorschach test herself. After
scoring the test and constructing profiles, she placed the results in random
order and passed them along to two experts in Rorschach analysis. Thus we have
Hooker's scored results analyzed by Drs. Klopfer and Meyer, with two tasks in
mind: first, to rate the subjects on "overall adjustment" and second,
to see if they could determine which were the homosexuals and which were the
heterosexuals.
On the task of
determining overall adjustment (i.e., social stability), the judges differed
sharply in some respects but agreed in others. For example, Judge "A"
rated 15 of the 60 as "top" in stability, while Judge "B"
rated only 4 as "top." The other ratings revealed greater agreement. However,
more homosexuals than heterosexuals ranked in the two "top" groupings
and more heterosexuals than homosexuals ranked in the two "bottom"
groupings.
When assigned the
task of choosing between the homosexual and heterosexual subjects, Judge
"A" correctly identified 17 of the 30 pairs and Judge "B"
18 of the 30. An ideal random selection would have identified 15 out of 30,
though Hooker is technically correct in saying that, in such a small sample,
the results indicate that "neither judge was able to do better than
chance."[11]
Critics of
Hooker's Rorschach results make at least two points. First, they question her
ability to administer and score the test. As an animal researcher until the
time she undertook this project, she obviously had logged comparatively little
experience in administering Rorschachs, a delicate and highly complicated task
in which the clinician gently and obliquely elicits spontaneous responses. Some
authorities in the field maintain that, under ideal circumstances, a more
qualified expert would have explored many avenues Hooker failed to note and
would have found out many things Hooker missed -- including indications of the
pathology of the homosexuals.
A second
criticism of her methodology is the lack of "blindness" in the
administration of the Rorschach. Ideally, given the nature of the results
sought, the test should have been administered under circumstances in which
both interviewer and subject were unaware of the purpose of the test. In the
case of the Hooker study, both she and her subjects knew what she was striving
to prove -- and both she and the homosexuals had a vested interest in proving
the hypothesis that homosexuals were not necessarily pathological.
Can Rorschach
subjects tailor their answers to desired ends? Absolutely, say some Rorschach
experts. One example of such a phenomenon in "projective techniques"
is called the "Rosenthal Effect," in which a subject generates the
results he or she believes the researcher wants. In this particular case, both
the researcher (Hooker) and her homosexual subjects had a compelling reason to
produce these results.
Perhaps the most
significant implications of Hooker's study came from the MAPS and TAT results,
which were analyzed by a single judge. Here is Hooker's own account:
The problem of
identifying the homosexual protocol from this material was essentially a much
easier one than that encountered with the Rorschach, since few homosexuals
failed to give open [sic] homosexual stories on at least one picture. The
second task given the Rorschach judges, of distinguishing the homosexual from
the heterosexual records when they were presented in matched pairs, was
therefore omitted.[12]
Note that the
identity of the homosexuals was so obvious in these tests that Hooker did not
even ask the judge to distinguish between homosexual and heterosexual. Simply
put, the homosexuals gave themselves away on tests less dependent than the
Rorschach on the training and experience of the examiner. Despite the fact that
they knew the purpose of this test was to prove their own stability, normalcy,
and lack of differentiation from heterosexuals, they still did not refrain from
indulging themselves in homosexual fantasies, thereby exposing their sexual
appetites. It is difficult not to conclude that in verbalizing such fantasies,
they were exhibiting the obsessive nature of homosexuality, the difficulty of
homosexuals to control their desire, even when their reputation in the
psychiatric community was at stake.
As one research
analyst puts it:
So Hooker's study
suggests that sexual fantasies among homosexuals are irrepressible, so much so
that such people cannot always see ordinary situations and relations as devoid
of sexual content, but must, on occasion, interject sexual significance where
it does not exist or, at the very least, need not exist. Following the logical
conclusions of this experiment, we are compelled to conclude that there is
something substantively different about the way homosexuals and heterosexuals
look at the world.[13]
In evaluating the
MAPS and TAT results for stability, the single judge assigned "top"
scores to no one; 9 homosexuals and 7 heterosexuals were rated "next to
top"; 15 homosexuals and 19 heterosexuals were ranked "average";
6 homosexuals and 3 heterosexuals were rated "next to bottom"; and no
homosexuals and 1 heterosexual were ranked at the "bottom." (Again,
critics say that the absence of "blindness" raises the possibility
that the Rosenthal Effect was again operative in the evaluation process, since
the judge knew what Hooker was seeking.)
The remainder of
her study is a highly selective summary of comments by judges, all of which
support her thesis that the two groups are, in effect, indistinguishable in
terms of "overall adjustment." In her own evaluation of the results,
Hooker -- aware of the degree to which she is challenging leading authorities
in the field -- offers a set of "admissions" about the limitations of
her study. In this section she concedes the possibility that homosexuals are
indeed pathological, a point overlooked by most of her admirers.
Hooker never
published the summary of these histories, though in a fairly recent interview
with writer-researcher Edward Eichel, she said she still hoped to do so after
35 years. However, she undoubtedly found in these personal histories what most
other researchers have found: a substantially greater number of sexual partners
among homosexuals than heterosexuals and a significantly shorter duration in
relationships. These findings, if published, could well have cast further
doubts on the stability and normalcy of homosexuals.
It is significant
to note that Hooker's stated reservations seldom, if ever, find their way into
the summaries of her work -- summaries that are now de rigeur in legal
and scholarly discussions of homosexuality. Her 1957 report has, like a folk
tale, become simpler and purer in the constant retelling. Instead of a
complicated account filled with the predictable complexity of life, we now have
only Beauty and the Beast.
Perhaps as
important as the Hooker 1957 research itself is the use that others have made
of her findings. Not only has this single study with only 60 subjects been
cited repeatedly by prominent psychiatrists, social critics, and gay activists;
but such summaries have also been accepted as part of the expert testimony in
high-profile court cases nationwide.
Curiously, many
of those who cite the study not only incorrectly summarize its content but do
so in remarkably similar fashion. It's as if one commentator misread Hooker and
all the rest derived their knowledge from that single erroneous commentary. Here
are several examples:
This striking
agreement among scientific experts and the working press is remarkable,
especially when one realizes that all of these accounts are untrue. Marmor's
version is particularly faulty. Indeed, the brief passage quoted above contains
five demonstrable errors of fact.
1. "The
homosexuals were all rated 6 and the heterosexuals 0 on the Kinsey scale."
In the first place, in her report Hooker makes no reference whatsoever to the
Kinsey scale. In the second place, she gives evidence in her narrative to
contradict Marmor's generalization. Three heterosexuals reported homosexual
contact after adolescence and three homosexuals reported heterosexual behavior.
Kinsey described his "0" rating as "[e]xclusively heterosexual
with no homosexual" and his "6" rating as "[e]xclusively
homosexual."
2. There were
three judges involved rather than two, as Marmor reports.
3. Dr. Marmor
reports that the judges reviewed all three tests when, in fact, two judges
reviewed the Rorschach and one judge reviewed the MAPS and TAT.
4. Dr. Marmor
states that the judges reviewed the MAPS and the TAT, as well as the Rorschach,
in an attempt to distinguish between heterosexual and homosexual subjects when,
in fact, no judge was asked to make this distinction for the MAPS and TAT
because Hooker knew the homosexuals had "outed" themselves.
5. Contrary to
what Marmor states, the MAPS and TAT did indeed reveal the sexual orientation
of the homosexuals.
Both Herek and
Shenitz make some of the same errors Marmor makes.
1. They suggest
that more than one judge reviewed all test results.
2. They also
state that after looking at the results of all three tests, the
"experts" or "judges" were unable to distinguish between
homosexual and heterosexual subjects.
Shenitz is no
more than a newspaper reporter, but in Morales v. Texas, Marmor and
Herek were testifying as expert scientific witnesses before a judge -- Marmor
as former president of the American Psychiatric Association. It is ironic that
while the Morales judge accepted the testimony of Marmor and Herek without
question, he ignored the research of Paul Cameron, who gives a careful and
precise summary of the Hooker study in his volume The Gay Nineties: What the
Empirical Evidence Reveals About Homosexuality.
This
unquestioning acceptance of "authorities" on the basis of
professional reputation or political correctness threatens the integrity of our
legal system. Judges must take greater responsibility for assessing the
soundness and accuracy of testimony by so-called experts; yet, paradoxically,
such a task is manifestly beyond the competence of the court. This dilemma is
the consequence of the politicizing of the scientific community over the past
several decades, particularly in questions of sexuality. The recent exposure of
Kinsey's errors indicates just how long researchers have been careless or
deliberately misleading in approaching sexual questions. And the widespread
acclamation of recent, flawed studies "proving" that homosexuality is
inherited genetically is evidence that the problem has only worsened over the
years.
***
Dr. Thomas Landess, former Academic Dean at the University of Dallas and
former Policy Analyst at the U.S. Department of Education, has authored
numerous books and articles.
1. Bruce Shenitz, "The Grande Dame of Gay
Liberation," Los Angeles Times Magazine, June 10, 1990, pp.20-34 at
22.
2. Ibid, p. 22.
3. Evelyn Hooker, "The Adjustment of the Male Overt
Homosexual," Journal of Projective Techniques, 21, 1957, pp. 18-31
at 19.
4. Ibid.
5. Shenitz, p. 22.
6. Ibid, p. 20.
7. Ibid, p. 20.
8. Ibid, pp. 19,20.
9. Ibid, p. 18. The
Editorial Note explains that, "If some of Dr. Hooker's comments, as
cautiously presented as they are, seem premature or incompletely documented,
the blame must fall on the editors who exercised considerable pressure on her
to publish now."
10. Ibid, p. 30.
11. Ibid, p.23.
12. Ibid, p. 25.
13. Paul Cameron, The Gay Nineties: What the Empirical
Evidence Reveals About Homosexuality, Adroit Press, (Franklin, TN: 1993), p.
37.
14. Hooker, p. 30.
15. Ibid, p. 30.
16. Ibid, p. 30.
17. Judd Marmor, Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry
(Baltimore: 1975), Vol. 2, pp. 15-16.
18. Cameron, pp. 35-36.
19. Shenitz, p. 25.