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Daryl Bem
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Daryl J. Bem is a social psychologist at Cornell University, and the originator of the self-perception theory of attitude change. He has also carried out research on psi phenomena (a technical term for "E.S.P."), group decision making, handwriting analysis, sexual orientation and personality theory and assessment.
received a B.A. in physics from Reed College in 1960, and began graduate work in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The civil rights movement had just begun, and he became so intrigued with the changing attitudes toward desegregation in the American South that he decided to switch fields and pursue a career as a social psychologist specializing in attitudes and public opinion.
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Encyclopedia
Daryl J. Bem is a social psychologist at Cornell University, and the originator of the self-perception theory of attitude change. He has also carried out research on psi phenomena (a technical term for "E.S.P."), group decision making, handwriting analysis, sexual orientation and personality theory and assessment.
Life
Biography
Bem received a B.A. in physics from Reed College in 1960, and began graduate work in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The civil rights movement had just begun, and he became so intrigued with the changing attitudes toward desegregation in the American South that he decided to switch fields and pursue a career as a social psychologist specializing in attitudes and public opinion. He obtained his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan in 1964, and has since taught at Carnegie-Mellon University, Stanford, Harvard, and Cornell University, where he has been since 1978.
Bem is coauthor of an introductory textbook in psychology and the author of Beliefs, Attitudes, and Human Affairs (1970). He testified before a subcommittee of the United States Senate on the psychological effects of police interrogation, and has served as an expert witness in court cases involving sex discrimination.
Career
Bem is perhaps best known for his theory of "self-perception", the most oft-cited competitor to Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory. According to the self-perception theory, people infer their attitudes from their own behavior much as an outside observer might. For example, a person asked to give a pro-Fidel Castro speech would consequently view him or herself as more in favor of Castro.
In parapsychology, Bem is known for his defense of the Ganzfeld experiment as empirical evidence of "psi", more commonly known as ESP or psychic phenomena. Bem also supports the idea of a connection between psi and quantum phenomena. More recently, Bem has investigated backward causation.
Exotic Becomes Erotic theory
Bem's Exotic Becomes Erotic (EBE) theory presents one possible explanation as to what differentiates the etiology of homosexuality from heterosexuality. Bem theorized that the influence of biological factors on sexual orientation may be mediated by experiences in childhood, that the child's temperament predisposes the child to prefer certain activities over others. Bem noted that, because of their temperament, which is influenced by biological variables such as genetic factors, some children will be attracted to activities that are commonly enjoyed by other children of the same gender, while others will prefer activities that are typical of the other gender. Bem theorized that this makes a gender-conforming child feel different from opposite-gender children, while gender-nonconforming children will feel different from children of their own gender. Bem believes that this feeling of difference evokes physiological arousal when the child is near members of the gender which the child considers as being "different". Bem theorizes that this physiological arousal is later transformed into sexual arousal: that, as adults, these people become sexually attracted to the gender which they see as different, or "exotic".
Bem based this theory in part on the finding that a majority of gay men and lesbians report being gender-nonconforming during their childhood years. A meta-analysis of 48 studies showed childhood gender nonconformity to be the strongest predictor of a homosexual orientation for both men and women. Bem also noted that, in a study by the Kinsey Institute of approximately 1000 gay men and lesbians (and a control group of 500 heterosexual men and women), 63% of both gay men and lesbians reported that they were gender nonconforming in childhood (i.e., did not like activities typical of their sex), compared with only 10-15% of heterosexual men and women. Bem also drew from six "prospective" studies, longitudinal studies that began with gender-nonconforming boys around age 7 and followed them into adolescence and adulthood; a majority (63%) of the gender nonconforming boys become gay or bisexual as adults. There are no prospective studies of gender nonconforming girls.
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