Assessing Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men: The Modern Homophobia Scale

The authors developed the Modern Homophobia Scale (MHS), a scale that includes measures of attitudes toward lesbians (MHS-L) and attitudes toward gay men (MHS-G). An initial pool of 97 items was generated by the authors based on a review of the literature on homophobia and feedback from several focus groups. Responses to the initial pool of items were factor analyzed. The final versions of the MHS-L and the MHS-G included items reflecting the following factors: Personal Discomfort with lesbians/gay men, Institutional Homophobia toward lesbians/gay men, and the Deviance/Changeability of female/male homosexuality. Although the Personal Discomfort, Institutional, and Deviance/Changeability factors were separable, they were highly correlated and showed little evidence of divergent validity. Reactions to gay, lesbian, and heterosexual characters in written vignettes provided initial support for the validity of the MHS. Both the MHS-L and MHS-G were significantly correlated with the Index of Homophobia and the Attitudes Toward Women Scale. A greater degree of homophobia on the MHS-L and MHS-G was associated with a greater degree of socially desirable responding as measured by the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding. Lower levels of homophobia on the MHS-L and MHS-G were associated with having lesbian and gay acquaintances and friends. On the MHS-L, men and women did not differ in their overall level of homophobia toward lesbians, but significant gender differences on MHS-L factor scores were present. Compared to men, women were more supportive of gay men on all three factors of the MHS-G.     

Initial Validation of the Open Adoption Scale: Measuring the Influence of Adoption Myths on Attitudes Toward Open Adoption

All adoptions, including those facilitated by public agencies, should be evaluated for openness. Although there are no national figures related to openness in public welfare, there are indications that it is not considered in all cases. Adoption myths may be one of the reasons that adoption workers do not always assess a family's ability to maintain a more open adoption arrangement. The following study is the initial validation of a multidimensional psychometric instrument developed to measure myths as they relate to open adoption. Based on a sample of 547 university students, the results indicate very good reliability and acceptable factorial and construct validity. The instrument was designed as a training and research tool to inform child welfare personnel and policy makers of the influence of adoption-related myths on child welfare adoption practice.     

Development of a Short-Form Scale of Public Attitudes Toward Homelessness

Nationwide, demographic changes have led to an increased awareness of the impact of cultural diversity on the delivery of medical and psychological care. Due to the over-representation of minority and socially stigmatized groups among those affected by HIV, understanding the effects of psychosocial, linguistic and cultural membership or treatment relationships is crucial. In the psychological treatment of HIV-infected patients, psychotherapists can enhance the lives of their patients and support their involvement and compliance with medical treatment planning Case studies are presented in which psychotherapy helped resolve difficulties in the medical care of three HIV-positive women that were due to cultural misunderstanding between doctors and patients.     

Development and Validation of the Attitudes about Sadomasochism Scale

This article describes the development and validation of a new measure, the Attitudes about Sadomasochism Scale (ASMS). Exploratory factor analysis with 213 participants yielded four subscales (Socially Wrong, Violence, Lack of Tolerance, and Real Life). Confirmatory factor analysis with a different sample (n = 258) indicated that this four-factor model fit the data well. Validation analyses using all 471 participants showed that the ASMS positively correlated with other measures of social and sexual conservatism (right-wing authoritarianism, attitudes about lesbians and gay men, sexual conservatism, rape myth acceptance). However, a multiple regression analysis showed that the majority of the variance in the ASMS was not explained by the four measures of conservatism, indicating that the ASMS measures a unique attitudinal construct. Further validation analyses revealed that participants who had prior knowledge about sadomasochism (SM), participants who have engaged in SM, and participants who knew a friend involved in SM all endorsed more positive attitudes on the ASMS. Thus, this study presents a reliable and valid measure of stereotypical and prejudicial attitudes about individuals involved in these nontraditional sexual practices.     

Women's Attitudes Toward Family Formation and Life Stage Transitions: A Longitudinal Study in Korea

Although it is well documented that family attitudes become less traditional over cohorts, little is known about how individuals' attitudes change over time. More research also is needed on how the within‐individual changes relate to important life stage events such as marriage, childbirth, and transitions in education and work. Evidence is particularly lacking in Asian countries, which have socioeconomic and cultural contexts very different from those in the West. To fill these gaps in the literature, the authors analyzed the attitudes toward family formation of Korean women in their 20s and 30s (N = 6,042). Individual fixed effects regression using the panel data from the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families revealed that women became more traditional over time and that transitions to marriage and motherhood partly accounted for the change. These findings are explained within the context of very low fertility in Korea and have implications for other rapidly changing societies.     

The Development and Validation of the Couple and Relationship Education Attitudes Index: Results from Two Studies

As relationship educators work to reach more participants for their programs, they often face challenges with recruitment and retention. The theory of planned behavior, along with research, posits that attitudes are often predictive of behavior, and that attitudes toward education and help-seeking can be varied by unique contexts. This paper reports on the development and validation of an index that measures attitudes toward couple relationship education (CRE). The two scales within this index (benefits of CRE & CRE is not a good fit) assess how comfortable individuals are with CRE. The results from two studies support the validation of the index and show how CRE attitudes are linked to relational factors and a measure of intentions to attend CRE, using the scales within the index. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed.     

The Effect of Daughters on Partisanship and Social Attitudes Toward Women

Washington ( 2008 ) finds that daughters promote liberal voting (at least with respect to women's issues) among U.S. Congress members and attributes this finding to socialization. However, daughters’ influence could manifest differently for elite politicians and the general citizenry either due to self‐selection or the Trivers‐Willard hypothesis, which suggests that parents invest differently in male and female children depending on their social status. Using nationally representative data from the General Social Survey, this study asks whether biological daughters affect political party identification, traditional views of women, or opinions about abortion and teen sex. We find that female offspring promote identification with the more conservative Republican Party, but this effect depends on social status. There is no evidence that daughters promote liberal views of women and less consistent evidence that they influence views of abortion or teen sex. Overall, evidence supports the Trivers‐Willard hypothesis, but with a more complex interaction by social status.     

Attitudes towards Women's Work Roles and Women Managers in a Sports Organization: The Case of Turkey

In recent years the need to apply gender equality principles to all sectors of Turkish society has been widely acknowledged and has become an increasingly important issue because of the modernization and recent Europeanization project of Turkey. However, even as this has been acknowledged, attempts to apply gender equality in employment in sports organizations have been mostly ignored. This article reports on the attitudes towards women's work roles and women managers of 83 women and 138 men who work in the General Directorate of Youth and Sport (GDYS) which is the biggest national governing body for sport in Turkey. The findings of this study indicate that both female and male workers in the GDYS scored lower on their attitudes towards women's work roles and held more negative attitudes towards women managers. Although male workers scored higher on attitudes towards women's work roles than female workers they held more negative attitudes towards women managers. In addition, femininity scores were found to be the only predictor of attitudes towards women's career advancement. Finally, we discussed these findings regarding previous studies and the sociocultural context of Turkey.     

The Sociolinguistic Distribution of and Attitudes Toward Focuser like and Quotative like

This paper accomplishes three tasks: it considers the actual age and gender distribution of like in a corpus of informal U.S. English, compares the findings of that study with the perceived age and gender distribution as determined by a questionnaire study and a matched-guise study, and analyzes specific sociolinguistic stereotypes associated with this usage. It is found that younger people use both kinds of like more often than older people do, and that men and women use it approximately equally often. The perceived age and gender distribution is quite different, however; young women are perceived as using like most often. Additionally, informants guess the age of like guises as younger than they do the age of non-like guises in a matched-guise study, and also rate like guises more positively in terms of solidarity-based criteria, but less positively in terms of status-based criteria.     

The Experience of Infertility by Low-Income Immigrant Latino Couples: Attitudes Toward Adoption

Low-income immigrant Latino couples attending an infertility clinic in San Francisco participated in three in-depth interviews. Couples were unwavering in their desire to become parents by “natural” means, yet faced with the prospect of childlessness, many expressed a guarded willingness to consider adoption in the future. Although few had actually made the commitment or initiated steps toward formal adoption, several couples had experiences with adoption through informal channels. Couples generally expressed concerns about stigma and appeared daunted by financial and bureaucratic obstacles. Low-income Latino families in California would benefit from increased adoption information, research, and support.     

Construction and Validation of the Touch Experiences and Attitudes Questionnaire (TEAQ): A Self-report Measure to Determine Attitudes Toward and Experiences of Positive Touch

Despite growing interest in the beneficial effects of positive touch experiences throughout our lives, and individual differences in how these experiences are perceived, there is not yet available a contemporary self-report measure of touch experiences and attitudes, for which the factor structure has been validated. This article describes four studies carried out during the construction and validation of the Touch Experiences and Attitudes Questionnaire (TEAQ). The original TEAQ, containing 117 items relating to positive touch experiences was systematically constructed. Principal component analysis reduced this measure to 57 items and identified six components relating to touch experiences during childhood and adult experiences relating to current intimate touch and touch with friends and family. Three attitudinal components were identified relating to attitude to intimate touch, touch with unfamiliar people, and self-care. The structure of this questionnaire was confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis carried out on data obtained from a second sample. Good concurrent and predictive validity of the TEAQ compared to other physical touch measures currently available was identified. Known-group validity in terms of gender, marital status and age was determined, with expected group differences identified. This study demonstrates the TEAQ to have good face validity, internal consistency, construct validity in terms of discriminant validity, known-group validity and convergent validity, and criterion-related validity in terms of predictive validity and concurrent validity. We anticipate this questionnaire will be a valuable tool for the field of physical touch research.     

Teachers' Attitudes toward Reporting Child Sexual Abuse: Problems with Existing Research Leading to New Scale Development

This paper details a systematic literature review identifying problems in extant research relating to teachers' attitudes toward reporting child sexual abuse and offers a model for new attitude scale development and testing. Scale development comprised a five-phase process grounded in contemporary attitude theories, including (a) developing the initial item pool, (b) conducting a panel review, (c) refining the scale via an expert focus group, (d) building content validity through cognitive interviews, and (e) assessing internal consistency via field testing. The resulting 21-item scale displayed construct validity in preliminary testing. The scale may prove useful as a research tool, given the theoretical supposition that attitudes may be changed with time, context, experience, and education. Further investigation with a larger sample is warranted.     

Women's Engagement in Pubic Hair Removal: Motivations and Associated Factors

Objectives: To examine the relationship between women's pubic hair removal (PHR) and genital satisfaction and explore whether attitudes toward, and personal consumption of, pornography are associated with women's engagement in PHR. Methods: Data were collected by online survey from women (N = 152) who were then categorized into groups based on the prevalence and extent of PHR during the previous 4 weeks. Groups were compared on demographic, background, and behavioral variables. Results: Eighty-three percent of respondents reported PHR in the previous 4 weeks and 40% of respondents removed all their pubic hair. Women who were younger, White, and were more satisfied with their genitals were more likely to engage in PHR. Of these, being younger, not having a degree, reporting less positive attitudes toward erotica, and 3 reasons for PHR predicted extensive PHR over limited removal. Conclusions: Findings provide insights into the reasons for, and extent of, PHR among women and factors associated with the practice. The possible influences of partners' preferences for genital hair removal by women and partners' consumption of pornography are important areas for future research.     

The Influence of Union Transitions on White Adults’ Attitudes Toward Cohabitation

Data from the Intergenerational Panel Study of Parents and Children are used to identify the influences of adult union transitions on changes in attitudes toward cohabitation among a sample of 794 young adults. The analysis examines the extent to which attitudes about cohabitation change as a result of entry into and exit from cohabitation and marriage. A dynamic interpretation of union transitions is formulated, and results demonstrate that entry into a first cohabitation and divorce after direct entry into marriage are associated with increasingly positive attitudes toward cohabitation between the ages of 18 and 31. Some evidence suggests that direct entry into stable marriage leads young adults to view cohabitation less favorably.     

The Relationship Between Perceived Interparental Conflict and Malaysian Young Adults' Attitudes Toward Divorce

In the context of an upward trend in divorce rates in Malaysia, this article explores the relationship between Malaysian young adults' perceptions of interparental conflict and their own attitudes toward divorce. Two questionnaires were administered to 160 young adults between 18 and 30 years old: the Attitude Towards Divorce Scale and the Perceptions of Interparental Conflict?Intensity/Frequency Scale. A positive relationship was found between perceived intensity and frequency of interparent conflict and attitudes toward divorce in males and females, respectively; however, the associations were weak. Future investigations of divorce need to take into consideration both the cultural factors that are influential within a society and how they shape gender norms within that population to gain a greater understanding of this relationship. Such investigations will increase the understanding of non-Western culture's unique interaction between attitudes and divorce, thus potentially aiding future efforts to strengthen marriages and families.     

The Impact of Short-Term Quality Intergenerational Contact on Children's Attitudes Toward Older Adults

ABSTRACT

This article describes a research study designed to investigate the influence of short term quality intergenerational contact on the attitudes of children toward older adults. Glass and Trent's (1982) Typology of Approaches to change attitudes and Amir's (1969) Contact Hypothesis guided the development of this study. Glass and Trent reported that there are three primary ways that attitudes change: through discussion with others about the attitudinal object, direct experiences with attitudinal objects, and the acquisition of more knowledge about the attitudinal object. If attitudes are a reflection of internal and external influences, then it is assumed they can change.

The study revealed that children who participated in the treatment had a more positive attitude toward older adults. Both inclusion in the intergenerational activities and time spent with related older adults were significant in explaining the changes in the children's attitudes toward older adults.     

The Lost Letter Technique as a Measure of Community Attitudes Toward a Major Social Issue*

A test of the validity of Milgram's lost letter technique (LLT) to measure community attitudes toward a sensitive social issue about which there are strong emotional feelings was conducted. This was accomplished by comparing the lost letter return rates with the results of a questionnaire study which measured the same attitudes in the same community. The sensitive social issue used in this study was busing to achieve a racial balance. The data from the questionnaire study indicated strong support for busing by blacks and strong opposition to busing by whites. The results of the lost letter technique were significantly different from those of the questionnaire. The LLT found approximately the same attitudes toward busing among both blacks and whites with almost half opposed to busing while just over half supported busing. The ability of the lost letter technique to provide a reliable unobtrusive attitudlnal measure on a sensitive social issue thus appears doubtful.     

Public Attitudes Toward Sexual Offenders and Sex Offender Registration

This study explores the relationship between fear of various types of sexual offenders and a belief that those sexual offenders should be subject to sex offender registration. We hypothesized that those who offend against children would elicit the most fear; consequently, the most feared offenders would be rated as most requiring registration. As part of a telephone survey, 733 participants answered questions about fear of sex offenders and agreement with requirements about registration for offenders convicted of incest, statutory rape, marital rape, pedophilia, date rape, and an offense committed more than 10 years prior. Results indicated that all types of sexual offenders elicited some fear from respondents, and fear was related to support of registration requirements.     

Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Stigma: Results From Young Women in Ghana

Young women’s experiences with sexual and reproductive health (SRH) stigma may contribute to unintended pregnancy. Thus, stigma interventions and rigorous measures to assess their impact are needed. Based on formative work, we generated a pool of 51 items on perceived stigma around different dimensions of adolescent SRH and family planning (sex, contraception, pregnancy, childbearing, abortion). We tested items in a survey study of 1,080 women ages 15 to 24 recruited from schools, health facilities, and universities in Ghana. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) identified the most conceptually and statistically relevant scale, and multivariable regression established construct validity via associations between stigma and contraceptive use. CFA provided strong support for our hypothesized Adolescent SRH Stigma Scale (chi-square p value < 0.001; root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = 0.07; standardized root mean square residual [SRMR] = 0.06). The final 20-item scale included three subscales: internalized stigma (six items), enacted stigma (seven items), and stigmatizing lay attitudes (seven items). The scale demonstrated good internal consistency (α = 0.74) and strong subscale correlations (α = 0.82 to 0.93). Higher SRH stigma scores were inversely associated with ever having used modern contraception (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 0.96, confidence interval [CI] = 0.94 to 0.99, p value = 0.006). A valid, reliable instrument for assessing SRH stigma and its impact on family planning, the Adolescent SRH Stigma Scale can inform and evaluate interventions to reduce/manage stigma and foster resilience among young women in Africa and beyond.     

Attitudes Toward Aging and Retirement Homes Before and After Entry Into a Retirement Home

The change of one's habitual living conditions in favor of institutionalized living in a retirement home can be a stressful event. Therefore, the question arises: How does entry into a retirement home affect attitudes toward one's life and aging and toward retirement homes? In order to answer this question, we used longitudinal data from 53 older individuals who were surveyed before and after entry into a retirement home. The data revealed that attitudes toward one's life and aging changed negatively and attitudes toward retirement homes changed positively; however, there are gains and losses in both attitudes.