On Communicating Pride, Crying in Movies, and Recruiting Innocent Bystanders: The Effect of Sex on Communication Schemas Activated with Gay and Heterosexual Targets

Abstract

Invoking social identity theory as an interpretive frame, a previous content analysis of heterosexuals' representations of imagined conversations with gay men revealed a number of communication schemas for talk with the latter (e.g., homonegativity and offense avoidance). This study explores the role of participant sex in determining the prevalence of such schemas, comparatively incorporating representations of conversations with a heterosexual target. Two hundred American undergraduates imagined a conversation with a gay or heterosexual male target. Male participants' imagined conversations with a gay target were rated more negative, indicated less evidence of relational development, and included more gay stereotyping than did females' imagined dialogues.