Anti-gay Attitudes Research Articles

Upward and downward physical appearance comparisons: Development of scales and examination of predictive qualities

Despite good theoretical and empirical rationale for assessing tendencies to make upward and downward physical appearance comparisons no measure for these specific constructs exists. The present work developed and tested the psychometric properties of upward and downward physical appearance comparison scales. The scales were administered to participants ( N = 224) along with measures of general appearance comparison tendencies, body image, disordered eating, Antifat and Antigay attitudes. The scales displayed good psychometric properties. Importantly, the upward but not downward physical appearance comparison scale predicted lower Appearance Evaluation and higher EAT-26 scores. Conversely, the downward but not upward physical appearance comparison scale predicted higher Appearance Evaluation and greater Antifat Attitudes (Dislike). The scales were unrelated to a nonappearance related construct. These new measures fill a gap in the literature and may be of benefit to researchers interested in body image, appearance concerns, eating disorders, social comparison, and obesity prejudice.

When Social Context Matters: The Influence of Long–Term Contact and Short–Term Exposure to Admired Outgroup Members on Implicit Attitudes and Behavioral Intentions

Past research has shown specific situational interventions can reduce implicit prejudice against outgroups, but nothing is known about who is most sensitive to these situations and whether they influence behavior. The present study examined the combined influence of short–term situational exposure to admired outgroup members (gays and lesbians) and individual differences in prior long–term contact on implicit antigay attitudes and discriminatory behavioral intentions (voting). Results showed that in the absence of any intervention, participants with little contact with gays and lesbians showed more implicit antigay attitudes and discriminatory voting intentions than participants with high contact. However, after the short–term intervention, participants, regardless of prior contact, showed low levels of implicit prejudice and discriminatory voting intentions. The observed reduction of bias in implicit attitudes and behavioral intentions occurred independently; attitude change did not mediate behavioral ch...

Social cognition and discourse processing goals in the analysis of `ex-gay' rhetoric

This article reports a critical discourse analysis of a series of newspaper advertisements advocating `ex-gay' ministries and `reparative therapy' for homosexuality — interventions designed to `treat' homosexuality through prayer or psychoanalysis. These ads, part of an effort to make `ex-gay' discourse more central to the public communication strategies of conservative, anti-gay political groups, feature both narrative and statistical arguments that gay men and lesbians can be converted to heterosexuality. This study draws on quantitative social psychological research on antigay attitudes and Slater's extension of the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion to establish the cognitive context for this discourse and to link the argumentative features of the advertisements to potential persuasive effects on different audiences. The analysis shows how different rhetorical strategies employed in these ads might differentially influence readers who are either `value protective' or `value affirmative' in their processing goals.

Public Attitudes Toward Gays and Lesbians

Public opinion about gay men and lesbians is a popular topic in both the popular press and academic journals. However, analyses of attitudinal trends are rare. Tracing changes in opinion polls on homosexuals in the United States between 1977 and 2003, the first part of the present study showed that public opinion of this minority group has become more positive over time. Part two of this research utilized a recent national survey to identify factors predicting anti-gay attitudes. The best predictors included respondents' sex, stance of anti-abortion and anti-women's equality, and religiosity. Implications for gay rights advocates were discussed.

Essentialist Beliefs About Homosexuality: Structure and Implications for Prejudice

The structure of beliefs about the nature of homosexuality, and their association with antigay attitudes, were examined in three studies (Ns = 309, 487, and 216). Contrary to previous research, three dimensions were obtained: the belief that homosexuality is biologically based, immutable, and fixed early in life; the belief that it is cross-culturally and historically universal; and the belief that it constitutes a discrete, entitative type with defining features. Study 1 supported a three-factor structure for essentialist beliefs about male homosexuality. Study 2 replicated this structure with confirmatory factor analysis, extended it to beliefs about lesbianism, showed that all three dimensions predicted antigay attitudes, and demonstrated that essentialist beliefs mediate associations between prejudice and gender, ethnicity, and religiosity. Study 3 replicated the belief structure and mediation effects in a community sample and showed that essentialist beliefs predict antigay prejudice independently of right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and political conservatism.

A Family Matter

The 2004 debate over civil marriage for same-gender couples highlights issues faced by mixed-orientation couples after one of the spouses comes out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. The disclosure becomes a family matter as their spouses and children cope with the new information and antigay attitudes. The majority of couples divorce. A minority stays married for three years or more by developing strategies that enhance the relationship, offset outside pressures, and sustain the family circle. Peers provide the most support, while therapists are often unfamiliar with sexual orientation, mixed orientation couples, or societal attitudes that impact families with a gay, lesbian, or bisexual parent. This article provides that information so that professionals can help these couples improve the quality of their lives and develop skills to create a future in which homosexuality, same-gender relationships, and gay parenting are more widely accepted and legalized. This development would decrease the number of mixed-orientation marriages with closeted spouses and increase the potential for both types of families to form lasting marriages and strong family units.

Using Startle Eye Blink to Measure the Affective Component of Antigay Bias

The underlying motivations of antigay attitudes are not fully understood. One component of antigay bias in particular, the affective component, has not been thoroughly investigated because of the difficulty of accurately assessing affective responses. We investigated the potential for physiologically measuring this affective component, which we describe as homophobia, specifically using startle eye blink methodology. Two studies (n = 158 heterosexual men over two studies) were conducted in which participants' responses to paper-and-pencil measures of homophobia were compared with their startle magnitude while viewing nude or seminude photographic stimuli of individual men and individual women (Study 1), and gay couples, lesbian couples, and heterosexual couples (Study 2). The results of Studies 1 and 2 clearly established a link between negative attitudes toward homosexual individuals and a negative physiological reaction toward viewing nude men and gay couples. In addition, erotophobia was found to interact with homophobia in predicting this affective response.

Willingness to Speak Out About Gay Law Reform

ABSTRACT We examined the extent to which people's private attitudes to gay law reform are influenced by the attitudes of others. Ninety-six university students were told that they were either in a minority or in a majority relative to their university group on their attitudes to gay law reform. Contrary to a number of assumptions made in the social psychological literature, participants who supported gay law reform were more prepared to act in line with their attitudes than were those who opposed gay law reform. Furthermore, anti-gay law reform participants appeared to reassess their attitudes when they were told they were in a minority; in contrast, pro-gay law reform participants were unaffected by the group norm. This suggests that anti-gay law reform attitudes are softer and more easily influenced than are pro-gay law reform attitudes. The implications of these results for activists are discussed.

Authoritarian Hegemony, Dimensions of Masculinity, and Male Antigay Attitudes.

Authoritarian Hegemony, Dimensions of Masculinity, and Male Antigay Attitudes.

Heterosexist Ambivalence and Heterocentric Norms: Drinking in Intergroup Discomfort

Eighty two participants read about either a gay male target who felt discomfort in a straight bar or a straight male target who felt discomfort in a gay bar. Participants explained the discomfort, rated the target’s actions, and produced counterfactuals that ‘undid’ his discomfort. Explanations of the targets’ discomfort focused on gayness more than on straightness, suggesting that they were affected by heterocentric norms. The straight target’s expressions of discomfort were perceived as more appropriate than the gay target’s, particularly among participants with strong anti-gay attitudes. Counterfactuals which undid these events also suggested implicit inequities in the perceived norms for interactions between gay and straight persons. These results are explained in terms of ambivalence between support for egalitarianism and anti-gay affect and the continued operation of heterocentric norms that limit the degree to which egalitarianism translates into equal treatment of persons of all sexual orientations.

A Test of the Infusion Method

ABSTRACT Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine whether the infusion method of teaching social work students about populations at risk is an effective educational strategy. Method: Participant MSW students were given pretests and posttests of the Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gays Scale at the beginning and end of the semester in which the infusion method of teaching about vulnerable populations including gay men was used in a required course on psychodynamic developmental theories. Results: Students' homophobic and antigay attitudes were lowered to a statistically significant degree. Discussion: All of the significant change occurred in the section with students whose mean pretest scores were in the mid range of the total group. Neither the sections with the highest or lowest mean score were affected. This illustrates the challenges of influencing firmly held values yet suggests that the values of those less decided can be influenced by this teaching method.

Implicit Association Test: Separating Transsituationally Stable and Variable Components of Attitudes toward Gay Men

Implicit Association Test: Separating Transsituationally Stable and Variable Components of Attitudes toward Gay Men

Are essentialist beliefs associated with prejudice?

Gordon Allport (1954) proposed that belief in group essences is one aspect of the prejudiced personality, alongside a rigid, dichotomous and ambiguity-intolerant cognitive style. We examined whether essentialist beliefs-beliefs that a social category has a fixed, inherent, identity-defining nature-are indeed associated in this fashion with prejudice towards black people, women and gay men. Allport's claim, which is mirrored by many contemporary social theorists, received partial support but had to be qualified in important respects. Essence-related beliefs were associated strongly with anti-gay attitudes but only weakly with sexism and racism, and they did not reflect a cognitive style that was consistent across stigmatized categories. When associations with prejudice were obtained, only a few specific beliefs were involved, and some anti-essentialist beliefs were associated with anti-gay attitudes. Nevertheless, the powerful association that essence-related beliefs had with anti-gay attitudes was independent of established prejudice-related traits, indicating that they have a significant role to play in the psychology of prejudice.

Articulated Thoughts About Antigay Hate Crimes

This study employed the articulated thoughts in simulated situations (ATSS) paradigm in the investigation of college students' thoughts upon confrontation with a conspiracy to commit a sexual-orientation-based hate crime versus a nonbias crime. In a between-subjects experimental design, participants were exposed to an audiotaped scenario depicting either the planning of a hate crime or a comparable nonhate crime. Content analysis of participants' articulated thoughts in response to these stimuli revealed that the hate crime resulted in more intentions to physically aggress against the perpetrator. This supports the notion that hate crimes have a greater potential than other crimes to lead to future violence. More people were also willing to intervene and help the hate crime victim than the nonhate crime victim. In addition, antigay attitudes turned out to be predictive of anger against the hate crime victim, disapproval of the hate crime victim, and support of the hate crime perpetrators. Implications of these findings, as well as suggestions for future research, are discussed.

Coming Out in a Hostile Social Environment

Young people below the age of 24 years account for almost half of all new HIV infections in the United States; young men who have sex with men are disproportionately represented among this population (Centers for Disease Control, 2000). The major assertions of this article are: (1) the social context of coming out may be vital to the overall psychological health and well-being of gay youth and, in turn, to their HIV risk behavior; and (2) coming out is a multifaceted developmental process: different pathways of coming out may be related to different types and determinants of HIV risk behavior. Evidence of a milieu of stigmatization, anti-gay hatred, harassment and violence among gay youth suggests that merely addressing HIV risk with even high quality individual-level interventions that myopically focus on sexual behavior may be insufficient. Interventions targeting anti-gay attitudes and behaviors in families, schools and communities, as well as combating discriminatory social policies and institutions, may be a vital aspect of HIV prevention for gay youth.

Heterosexual Identity and Heterosexism

We propose that heterosexuals' attitudes toward their own heterosexual identity evolve in a manner similar to the development of racial identity attitudes among Whites -another dominant group with privileged social status. A more developed heterosexual identity, we hypothesized, would be associated with diminished levels of negative attitudes toward non-heterosexuals. To test our hypotheses, we administered to 154 heterosexual students Herek's (1988) Attitudes Toward Gays and Lesbians scale measuring heterosexist (i.e., anti-gay) attitudes and a version of Helms and Carter's (1990) White Racial Identity Attitude Scale (WRIAS) modified to assess heterosexual identity attitudes. Hierarchical regression analyses controlling demographic indicators partially confirmed the hypothesized associations between evolving identity stages and less heterosexist attitudes. The role of recognizing one's social privilege is proposed (though not empirically examined) as a potential mediator between developing a dominant group identity and decreasing prejudicial attitudes towards non-privileged groups. Finally, implications and recommendations for future research and addressing heterosexism are presented.

Becoming a Heterosexual Adult: The Experiences of Young Women

Adolescence brings new pressures on girls to adopt traditional genderroles and to become heterosexual adults in ways defined as appropriate by their peer group, their family, and the culture more broadly. We first review descriptive data on adolescent girls' early experiences with heterosexuality, including first intercourse and the experience of desire. Within a theoretical framework of cognitive social learning theory, we examine messages conveyed to girls by peers, parents, the mass media, and the schools. All four sources convey antigay attitudes while making homosexuality invisible; they also encourage traditional gender roles, an important component of which is heterosexuality.

The gender belief system, authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and heterosexuals' attitudes toward lesbians and gay men.

We tested hypotheses drawn from three theoretical perspectives—gender belief system, authoritarianism, and social dominance—concerning heterosexuals' attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. Data from 122 male and 131 female heterosexual college students with mostly White, middle-class backgrounds indicated that constructs postulated by all three perspectives played important roles in predicting attitudes: Gender differences in attitudes toward lesbians and gay men were mediated by social dominance orientation and gender-role beliefs, indicating that gender role beliefs may act as legitimizing myths to justify antigay attitudes. Authoritarianism had both a direct relationship to attitudes toward lesbians and gay men and an indirect relationship mediated by gender-role beliefs.

AIDS Stigma and Sexual Prejudice

This article presents national survey data to assess the extent to which AIDS-related stigma remains linked to public attitudes toward homosexuality in the United States. Most heterosexuals continue to associate AIDS primarily with homosexuality or bisexuality, and this association is correlated with higher levels of sexual prejudice (antigay attitudes). Although all people who contract AIDS sexually are assigned blame for their infection, such blame is greater for a gay or bisexual man than for a heterosexual man or woman. A sizable minority of the public equates all male-male sexual behavior with AIDS, even sex between two HIV-negative men. A substantial portion also expresses discomfort about touching an article of clothing or drinking from a sterilized glass used by a person with AIDS (PWA). These misconceptions and discomfort are correlated with sexual prejudice. It is argued that the link between AIDS attitudes and sexual prejudice impedes HIV prevention efforts and threatens civil rights.

AIDS Stigma and Sexual Prejudice

This article presents national survey data to assess the extent to which AIDS-related stigma remains linked to public attitudes toward homosexuality in the United States. Most heterosexuals continue to associate AIDS primarily with homosexuality or bisexuality, and this association is correlated with higher levels of sexual prejudice (antigay attitudes). Although all people who contract AIDS sexually are assigned blame for their infection, such blame is greater for a gay or bisexual man than for a heterosexual man or woman. A sizable minority of the public equates all male-male sexual behavior with AIDS, even sex between two HIV-negative men. A substantial portion also expresses discomfort about touching an article of clothing or drinking from a sterilized glass used by a person with AIDS (PWA). These misconceptions and discomfort are correlated with sexual prejudice. It is argued that the link between AIDS attitudes and sexual prejudice impedes HIV prevention efforts and threatens civil rights.