Evelyn Hooker (September 2, 1907 - November 18, 1996), United Statespsychologist most notable for her 1957 paper The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual in which she administered psychological tests to groups of homosexual and heterosexual people and asked experts, based on those tests alone, to select the homosexuals. The experiment, which other researchers subsequently repeated, demonstrates that homosexuals are no worse adjusted than the general population, and therefore being in their right minds would not, given an option, have chosen homosexuality over the more socially acceptable heterosexuality.
As a result of her studies and the verifications thereof, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its handbook of disorders in 1973.
In her 1957 report, EvelynHooker 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.
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.
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.
American psychologist EvelynHooker was not herself homosexual, but her pioneering studies on male homosexuality in the 1950s and 1960s challenged the "sickness" model of homosexuality then prevalent, and helped pave the way for the modern gay rights movement.
Hooker's friends had dared her to subject them to the standard psychological exams so as to determine whether conventional wisdom regarding the degeneracy of homosexuality was true.
Hooker concluded from her research that the patterns of homosexuality are as varied and as complex as those of heterosexuality, and that one cannot assume that homosexuals can be easily distinguished from heterosexuals on the basis of emotional and psychological adjustment.
Feeds |
Contact