The Psychology of Everyday Life:Love, Marriage, and the Baby Carriage

Sexual Orientation

What is the Kinsey scale?

Alfred Kinsey saw sexual orientation as falling on a continuum. He published a scale in 1948 which is still in use today. This seven-point scale ranges from 0 = exclusively heterosexual to 6 = exclusively homosexual. In a study of 4,506 subjects published in 2000 by Steven Gangestad, Michael Bailey, and Nicholas Martin, 5 percent of men and about 3 percent of women scored three or above on the Kinsey scale. About 9 percent of men and 19 percent of women scored a 1 or 2 on the scale. That left about 85 percent of the men and 78 percent of the women to score 0 = exclusively heterosexual.



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