Unthinkable gay Black men: Asymmetric conjunction fallacies at the intersection of race and sexual orientation

People often hold incompatible stereotypes of gay and Black men, making it unlikely for someone to be seen as both simultaneously. Five studies with 1226 participants evidence that these stereotypes produce classic conjunction fallacy violations of extensional reasoning. Adapting Tversky and Kahneman's (1983, Psychological Review, 90(4), 293-315.) classic 'Linda problem', we found that a man with Black-stereotypic attributes was deemed more likely to be both Black and gay than to be gay (Studies 1 and 3), while a man with gay-stereotypic attributes was deemed more likely to be both gay and Black than to be Black (Studies 2 and 4). These effects were not equivalent, suggesting that Black-stereotypic traits preclude attributions of gayness more than gay-stereotypic preclude attributions of Blackness. Updating impressions of a gay-stereotypic man with Black-stereotypic attributes suppressed judgements of the likelihood he is gay. However, new information that a Black-stereotypic man has gay-stereotypic attributes did not suppress the likelihood he is Black (Study 5). New information that a Black-stereotypic man is gay did not 'deracialize' him as much as the inference that a gay-stereotypic man is Black 'degayed' him. These asymmetric conjunction fallacies triangulate with past findings to suggest 'Black' may be dominant over 'gay' in impression formation at this intersection.