Using Scenarios for Measuring the Affective and Behavioral Components of Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men: Validation of the SABA Scale.

Abstract

Attitude-change research requires sound attitude measures adequately predicting behavior. Most existing attitude measures focus on the cognitive (and some on the affective) attitude component (while neglecting the behavioral component). The present research introduces the SABA, a brief scale that consists of Scenarios measuring the Affective and Behavioral components of Attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. In two studies with student and non-student samples (n1 = 66, n2 = 202), we developed a 25-item scale and reduced it by performing exploratory factor analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis yielded two factors (affective and behavioral) for each version (SABA-L for attitudes toward lesbians, SABA-G for attitudes toward gay men). The reduced scales each contained five scenarios showing good reliability. High convergent validity and discriminant validity were shown using explicit and implicit attitude measures in a multitrait-multimethod analysis. Further, SABA scores correlated with the Modern Homonegativity Scale (MHS) and the Attitudes Toward Lesbians (ATL) and Gay Men Scale (ATG), but-as predicted-not with social anxiety and the Homopositivity Scale. The SABA's criterion and incremental validity were demonstrated in predicting attitude-related behavior better than the MHS. SABA scores showed established associations and differences in antigay attitudes based on age, religiousness, male role norms, authoritarianism, openness (SABA-G only), and sexual orientation, confirming (known-group) validity. Further, the SABA correlated less with the motivation to act without prejudice than the MHS, the ATL, and the ATG. Thus, outperforming existing attitude scales, the SABA appears to be a psychometrically sound instrument to measure attitudes toward lesbians and gay men.