A Comparison of Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men Among Students of Helping Professions in Crete,Greece: The Cases of Social Work,Psychology, Medicine,and Nursing

This study investigated the attitudes toward lesbians and gay men among social work, psychology, medical, and nursing students in Crete, Greece, using Herek’s ATLG scale. No respondents held completely heterosexist attitudes; only 1.6% held completely non-heterosexist attitudes. The 44.96 total ATLG score indicates a slightly positive attitude toward lesbians and gay men. Psychology students scored higher than all others on positive attitudes, followed by social work students, medical students, and nursing students. Gender, having lesbian or gay acquaintances or friends, and religiosity were significant factors influencing students’ attitudes, while no impact on attitudes due to the effects of higher education could be discerned. Implications for curriculum design and teaching methods are discussed.     

Impact of a Homonegativity Awareness Workshop on Attitudes Toward Homosexuality

The current study evaluated the effects of a homonegativity awareness workshop on attitudes toward homosexuality and examined individual difference variables associated with attitude change. Participants included 71 female and 43 male students (approximate mean age?=?23). Compared to a control group of introductory psychology students, participants were less homonegative and erotophobic (F(1, 359)?=?62.47 and 15.92, ps?<?.001) after the workshop. Implications for contact with gay and lesbian persons through structured intervention programs on attitudes toward homosexuality are discussed in terms of both the practice and theory of reducing prejudice and discrimination.     

Ambivalent Homoprejudice towards Gay Men: Theory Development and Validation

ABSTRACT

Myriad social groups are targets of hostile and benevolent (i.e., ambivalent) prejudice. However, prejudice toward gay men is typically conceptualized as hostile, despite the prevalence of benevolence toward gay men in popular media. This article aims to compare gay men with other targets of ambivalent prejudice (i.e., women and elderly people) and draw on the stereotype content and microaggressions literatures in order to develop a theory of ambivalent homoprejudice. The resultant framework, comprising repellent, adversarial, romanticized, and paternalistic homoprejudice was investigated using seven focus groups of heterosexuals and gay men (N = 22), and the findings were consistent with stereotype content theory. Directions for future research into the deleterious effects of ambivalent homoprejudice and possible empowering interventions are discussed.     

Application and Testing the Reliability and Validity of a Modified Version of Herek's Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men Scale in China

The present study was the first attempt to test the reliability and validity of Herek's Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men Scale (ATLG; Herek, 1988 Herek, G. M. 1988. Heterosexuals' attitudes toward lesbians and gay men: Correlatesand gender differences. The Journal of Sex Research, 25(4): 451–477. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in the Chinese population. Participants (n = 2,391 for the field trials and n = 200 for test–retest reliability) were asked to complete the translated, slightly modified version of the ATLG. The resulting ATLG has a two-dimensional factor structure as well as good validity and reliability in the Chinese culture. ATLG scores followed distinct patterns according sex and level of education that were consistent with previous studies in other populations. The significance of these findings in Chinese culture is discussed.     

Measuring Sexual Prejudice Against Gay Men and Lesbian Women: Development of the Sexual Prejudice Scale (SPS)

The presence of bias against gay men and lesbian women remains an ongoing issue, and accurate measurement is essential to targeted intervention. A validation study of a new instrument, the Sexual Prejudice Scale, is reported. Students (N = 851) from 4 different universities participated in this study. An exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted, and results of these analyses indicated a 3-factor solution (affective – valuation, stereotyping, and social equality beliefs) for each of the sex-specific scales. Evidence of validity and the results of the reliability analysis are reported. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Polymorphous Prejudice: Liberating the Measurement of Heterosexuals' Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men

A multidimensional measure of sexual prejudice was developed to assess the increasing complexity of heterosexuals' attitudes toward gay men and lesbians. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed a valid and reliable 7-factor measure that assessed: 1) traditional heterosexism; 2) tendency to deny anti-gay discrimination continues; 3) aversion toward gay men; 4) aversion to lesbians; 5) judgments regarding the value of the gay and lesbian movement; 6) resistance to heteronormative expectations; and 7) endorsement of positive beliefs about gay people. A modern heterosexism theory was supported and queer/liberationist notions of anti-heteronormativity and positive beliefs were found to be related to pro-homosexual attitudes.     

Essentialist Beliefs About Homosexuality Predict Positive and Negative Behavioral Intentions Toward Lesbian Women and Gay Men

This study focuses on essentialist beliefs about homosexuality as determinants of discriminatory intentions against gay men and lesbian women (LG) and the readiness to engage in positive action toward them. A sample of 997 exclusively heterosexual adults participated in an online study set in Croatia, a country with high homophobia undergoing social change that threatens the higher status of the heterosexual majority. Beliefs about immutability and universality of homosexuality were associated with less intention to discriminate and more readiness to engage in positive behavior, while discreteness beliefs were inversely related to both. Furthermore, attitudes toward LGs seem to be the mechanism behind the observed links. Results suggest essentialist beliefs might be fuel for attitudes, which are in turn associated with behavioral intentions. Importantly, essentialist beliefs had both indirect (with attitudes as mediators) and direct effects on behavioral intentions speaking in favor of their robust role in explaining LG-related phenomena.     

Impact of Family Environment on Future Mental Health Professionals' Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men

This study explored the relationship between dimensions of functioning in the family of origin of graduate students in helping profession programs and their attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. One hundred forty-three participants completed the Family Environment Scale (FES-R: Moos & Moos, 1986 Moos, R. H. and Moos, B. S. 1986. Family Environment Scale, 2nd, Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.  [Google Scholar]), the Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men scale (ATLG: Herek, 1994 Herek, G. M. 1994. “Assessing attitudes toward lesbians and gay men: A review of empirical research with the ATLG scale”. In Lesbian and gay psychology: Theory, research, and clinical applications, Edited by: Greene, B. and Herek, G.M. 206–224. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), and demographic questions. Results suggest that three family dimensions (conflict, intellectual-cultural orientation, and moral-religious emphasis) significantly predicted attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. The results also revealed that younger students held more negative attitudes toward lesbians and gay men than their older peers. Implications for educators, researchers, and practitioners are discussed.     

Support for Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights: Development and Examination of a New Scale

This research outlines the development of a psychometrically sound, uni-dimensional scale to assess support for gay and lesbian civil rights. Initial scale development involved examining item-pool responses from 224 undergraduate students. The resulting Support for Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights (SGLCR) scale consisted of 20 items. In a series of studies, the SGLCR demonstrated a stable factor structure, strong internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity. The relationships between SGLCR scores and participants' sex, religiosity, political ideology, gender role beliefs, and attitudes toward lesbians and gays were significant and in the predicted directions.     

Moving Toward a Holistic Conceptual Framework for Understanding Healthy Aging Among Gay Men

In the last four decades, we have witnessed vast and important transitions in the social, economic, political, and health contexts of the lived experiences of gay men in the United States. This dynamic period, as evidenced most prominently by the transition of the gay rights movement to a civil rights movement, has shifted the exploration of gay men’s health from one focusing primarily on HIV/AIDS into a mainstream consideration of the overall health and wellbeing of gay men. Against this backdrop, aging gay men in the United States constitute a growing population, for whom further investigations of health states and health-related disparities are warranted. In order to advance our understanding of the health and wellbeing of aging gay men, we outline here a multilevel, ecosocial conceptual framework that integrates salient environmental, social, psychosocial, and sociodeomgraphic factors into sets of macro-, meso-, and micro-level constructs that can be applied to comprehensively study health states and health care utilization in older gay men.     

A Comparative Study of Attitudes Toward Same-Gender Parenting and Gay and Lesbian Rights in Portugal and in Mexico

ABSTRACT

The belief that gay men and lesbians are unable to provide a stable environment in which to raise children fuels manifestations of sexual prejudice that are still highly prevalent in Portugal and Mexico. The aim of this study was to assess attitudes toward same-gender parenting and gay and lesbian rights, as well as beliefs about the controllability of homosexuality among a sample of 531 university students. A further aim was to assess the predictors of attitudes toward same-gender parenting. Results revealed the existence of ambivalent attitudes toward same-gender parenting. The belief that homosexuality is a choice and thus controllable in particular explained over 50% of the total variance of attitudes toward same-gender parenting. Being a man, older, and highly religious predicted higher levels of sexual prejudice regarding same-gender parenting. Comparative cross-cultural studies have the potential to highlight common features but also specificities of sexual prejudice.     

Attitudes of Heterosexual Men and Women Toward HIV Negative and Positive Gay Men

Attitudes of Italian heterosexual men and women toward gay men, both HIV positive and negative, are poorly investigated. Italian culture is still extremely conservative and provides limited support to the gay community (e.g., lack of same-sex marriage recognition). Consequently, gay men experience social exclusion and disparities. The present study explores the association between homophobia and closeness with sexual orientation and HIV status. 261 heterosexual Italian men and women were assessed for feelings of closeness and homophobia after reading a vignette where the character was C1: heterosexual and HIV negative; C2: gay and HIV negative; or C3: gay and HIV positive. Experiences of homophobia and closeness varied depending on gender of participant and condition assigned, and higher levels of homophobia were correlated with lower levels of closeness regardless of HIV status. Implications and future directions are discussed.     

Emotional Reactions of Heterosexual Men to Gay Imagery

Studies of homonegativity in the general population typically use scales to examine the attitudes of a heterosexual sample toward gay men and lesbian women. However, these scales fail to address that accepting gay and lesbian people in theory is not tantamount to accepting the sexual practices engaged in by gay and lesbian people. As a result, relying on homonegativity scales and hypothetical scenarios (i.e., asking a participant to imagine a gay man or lesbian woman from personality characteristics provided) may not offer a complete view of the complexities of homonegativity. To explore this possibility, 83 men self-identifying as either largely or exclusively heterosexual rated one of three groups of images (romantic gay, erotic gay, and control) on the basis of five questions related to their emotional responses. A psychometrically sound homonegativity scale was also completed. Results indicated that homonegativity was a significant predictor of decreased happiness, anger, disgust, task enjoyment, and reported liking of the imagery. Furthermore, homonegativity was found to moderate the association between exposure to the romantic images and four of the five emotional responses (happiness, anger, disgust, and liking). Exposure to the set of erotic gay images, however, was associated with negative emotional responses, regardless of participants’ self-reported level of homonegativity (i.e., overt homonegativity possessed less moderational power for this type of imagery). These findings suggest that standard scales of homonegative attitudes may be unable to capture the affective negativity that heterosexual men experience when viewing gay male intimacy.     

A Meta-Analytic Review of the Association Between Disgust and Prejudice Toward Gay Men

ABSTRACT

A sizeable number of studies have documented a relationship between heterosexual persons’ experience of disgust (measured as an individual difference variable or induced experimentally) and prejudice toward gay men (i.e., homonegativity). Yet, to date, no one has attempted to meta-analytically review this corpus of research. We address this gap by conducting a meta-analysis of published and unpublished work examining heterosexual men and women’s disgust and their homonegativity toward gay men. Fourteen articles (12 published, two unpublished) containing 17 studies were analyzed (N = 7,322). The average effect size for disgust sensitivity studies was moderate to large (d = 0.64), whereas for disgust induction studies, the effect was large (d = 0.77). No evidence of effect size heterogeneity emerged. Future directions and recommendations for methodological improvements are outlined.     

Stereotypes,Emotions, and Behaviors Toward Lesbians,Gay Men,Bisexual Women,and Bisexual Men

The utility of the Stereotype Content Model (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002) and the Behaviors from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes map (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007) were examined in the context of heterosexuals’ attitudes toward sexual minorities. Heterosexual adults completed a survey measuring stereotypes, emotions, and behavioral tendencies toward lesbians, gay men, bisexual women, and bisexual men. Stereotype content differed across groups and showed “gendered” and “valenced” effects on emotions and behavioral tendencies. Competence predicted behaviors for men, whereas warmth and competence predicted behaviors for women, and, for the most part, more was better. Admiration and contempt mediated most of these relationships across most subgroups, but pity and envy played smaller roles for some subgroups. Across all groups, competence played a more predictive role than warmth.     

Exploring the Relationship Between Public Opinion and Personal Attitudes and Behavior Toward Lesbians and Gay Men: Social Conformity Revisited

This study investigated the relationship between social conformity, gender-role egalitarianism, and personal levels of heterosexism, or prejudice based on same-sex orientation. Mock public opinion polls of a positive or negative nature regarding same-sex orientation were used to study attitudinal and behavioral change of participants and attitude-behavior consistency. The study sample included 194 undergraduate students from a Midwestern university. A correlation existed between participants' traditional gender role beliefs and heterosexism. Participants who viewed the positive public opinion poll demonstrated behavioral support for a lesbian and gay organization, as did participants with positive attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. Findings are analyzed within a social prejudice framework.     

Self-perceived origins of attitudes toward homosexuality

Undergraduate students (N = 417) at a large southern university responded to open-ended questions designed to assess self-perceived origins of attitudes toward homosexuality and circumstances that may prompt a shift in attitudes. Inductively coded responses pointed to a positive correlation between attitudes toward homosexuality and experience interacting with gay men or lesbians; this is discussed in the context of Allport's (1954 ) contact hypothesis and Herek's (1984 , 1986 ) theory of functional attitudes. Implications are discussed for education and intervention efforts aimed at facilitating understanding and tolerance of gay men and lesbians.     

Relationships Between Religiosity Level and Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men Among Turkish University Students

This study examined the relationships between religiosity levels and attitudes toward lesbians and gay men among freshmen university students in Turkey. The Attitudes Towards Lesbians and Gay Men Scale–Short Form and the Religiosity Scale were administered to 91 male (M = 19.95, SD = 1.48 years) and 171 female (M = 19.23, SD = 1.28 years) students. The findings showed that male freshmen (M = 19.32, SD = 4.97) had more negative attitudes toward gay men than toward lesbians (M = 17.84, SD = 5.25), p = .000. In addition, attitudes of male freshmen were significantly more negative toward gay men (M =19.32, SD = 4.97) than females (M = 17.51, SD = 5.73), p = .012. Both male and female freshmen students who had higher levels of religiosity were found to have higher levels of negative attitudes toward both lesbians and gay men.     

The Relationships Between Sense of Belonging to the Gay Community,Body Image Dissatisfaction,and Self-Esteem Among Australian Gay Men

Body image dissatisfaction has been linked to belonging to the gay community and poor self-esteem among gay men. This study was designed to explore the applicability of a moderation model and a mediation model in explaining the relations between sense of belonging to the gay community, body image dissatisfaction and self-esteem among 90 self-identified Australian gay men. Participants completed the psychological subscale of the Sense of Belonging Instrument, the Body Satisfaction Scale, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Results supported the moderation model; the relation between body image dissatisfaction and self-esteem was found to be statistically significant only at average and high levels of belonging to the gay community. The mediation model was also supported; body image dissatisfaction partially mediated the sense of belonging–self-esteem relation. Educating gay men and health professionals about the possible negative outcomes of “belonging” to an appearance-oriented community is important.     

Multiple Dimensions of Attitudes About Homosexuality: Development of a Multifaceted Scale Measuring Attitudes Toward Homosexuality

Attitudes toward homosexuality are complex. To get a comprehensive view on the attitudes of people, different dimensions need to be included in research. Based on a review of the literature, we distinguish five dimensions: acceptance of homosexuality in a general sense; attitude toward equal rights; reactions to homosexuality “at close quarters”; reactions to homosexuality in public; and so-called modern homonegativity. In a study on a representative sample of Dutch Defence personnel (N = 1,607) we tested this model. Structural equation modeling of several items measuring the attitude toward homosexuality offers a six factor solution. These six factors are more or less comparable to the five dimensions we distinguished. The dimension “reactions to homosexuality at close quarters” is, however, empirically split in a dimension on affective reactions to homosexuality and homosexual persons in general and a dimension on affective reaction to homosexual friends or acquaintances.