Decisions on child care: Do sex and sexual orientation matter?

This experiment on person perception used a role-playing methodology to exa mine whether a target individual's sex and sexual orientation influence per ceived abilities as a child care worker. Men and women (N = 78) role played the part of a parent who has placed an advertisement for a full-time babys itter. They received information about a male or female, heterosexual or ho mosexual applicant (randomly assigned). Although participants preferred to hire (and Me more comfortable leaving their children with) a heterosexual w oman than any other type of applicant, they believed that homosexual men an d women were as knowledgeable about aspects of child care, e.g., nutrition, first aid, as their heterosexual peers. The least preferred child care wor ker was a heterosexual man, perhaps because such a target is inconsistent w ith traditional sex-role expectations.