The effect of gender and male distinctiveness threat on prejudice against homosexuals

Don't Be My Neighbor: Exploring Social and Value Predictors of Sexual Prejudice Expressed by Those Who Fully Accept Sexual Minorities

It is without a doubt that acceptance of sexual minorities is growing across the globe. Two major narratives are commonly assumed to be true about this increased acceptance. First, this acceptance is increased by proximity to the stigmatized. Second, this acceptance is enduring. These might not be entirely true as multiple attitudinal datasets frequently show a diversity among the accepting population, especially for those who express full acceptance of the stigmatized while refusing neighboring proximity to them. This inconsistency in acceptance is the main focus of this study. Using rejection of neighboring proximity to sexual minorities as a case for stigma and data from the Integrated Values Surveys (n = 52,796; 48.15% male), this study explores the similarities and differences between those who fully accept sexual minorities and those who express heightened sexual prejudice when rejecting neighboring proximity to sexual minorities. Logistic regression models show those in the accepting population who reject neighboring proximity to sexual minorities are more likely to be men, lower educated, highly religious, hold a traditional gender-related belief, and are attracted to right-wing political ideologies. While those with extreme sexual prejudice share sex, age, and traditional gender-related beliefs in rejecting neighboring proximity to sexual minorities, no effects for educational attainment and political ideology were discovered. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Media representation matters: The effects of exposure to counter-stereotypical gay male characters on heterosexual men’s expressions of discrimination

Presence of gay men in mainstream media may have a positive impact on viewers’ attitude change. However, gay male characters are often stereotypically portrayed as feminine, and no research has yet explored audiences’ reactions to counter-stereotypical gay characters. Heterosexual Italian men ( N = 158) were exposed to a clip portraying (i) a stereotypical feminine gay male character, (ii) a counter-stereotypical masculine gay male character, or (iii) a nature documentary. Compared to the other conditions, exposure to the counter-stereotypical gay character increased discrimination toward gay men, in the form of anti-gay jokes, the higher the level of participants’ prejudice against gay men. Results further demonstrated that this effect was explained by reduced perceived stereotypicality of the character. Findings are in line with the social identity theory prediction that when gay men (outgroup) are perceived as too similar, and potentially threaten the group identity, heterosexual men would attempt to restore ingroup distinctiveness.

Fear and cultural background drive sexual prejudice in France – a sentiment analysis approach

Sexual prejudice and its negative consequences remain major issues in Western societies, and numerous studies have tried to pinpoint its sociocultural underpinnings. However, most research has operationalized sexual prejudice via self-report measures or via implicit association tests (IATs), although it surfaces in language use and can be traced in spontaneous speech.

Here, we report results from an experimental study investigating sexual prejudice in a corpus of spontaneous speech samples. Specifically, we tested in a context-sensitive sentiment analysis approach which attitudes (negative vs. positive) and emotions (joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust) were voiced by the participants in response to picture prompts displaying homosexual couples. We also considered the sociocultural basis of prejudicial attitudes, in particular the effects of the participants’ cultural background (France vs. Maghreb), age and gender. We find strong effects of cultural background and gender both on the frequency of negative vs. positive attitudes expressed, and on discrete emotion categories, namely that male Maghrebian participants were more negative and conveyed more fear. The results are discussed in the context of current diversity approaches in France and their implications for potential prejudice regulation strategies. We further discuss in how far our context-sensitive sentiment analysis approach advances research on sexual prejudice.

Evoking gender distinctiveness threat in cisgender women lowers their support for gender-inclusive bathroom policies

Some cisgender women oppose policies granting transgender women access to women-only bathrooms. We examined whether this opposition stems from perceiving that transgender women threaten the distinctiveness of the social category “women” (gender distinctiveness threat). Cisgender women ( N = 520) read about a state bill enabling transgender women to use women’s bathrooms. Participants further read that enacting the bill would mean their state officially believes that “transgender women are real women” or “transgender rights are human rights”; in the control condition, this information was omitted. Participants reported their support for the bill and level of gender distinctiveness threat. Cisgender women who read that the bill would imply their state believes transgender women are real women (vs. transgender rights are human rights) reported lower bill support, and this effect was mediated by distinctiveness threat. Perceived threat to the distinctiveness of womanhood may help explain cisgender women’s reluctance to include transgender women in women-only spaces.

Exposure to continuous or fluid theories of sexual orientation leads some heterosexuals to embrace less-exclusive heterosexual orientations

We examined whether heterosexual individuals' self-reported sexual orientation could be influenced experimentally by manipulating their knowledge of the nature of sexual orientation. In Study 1 (180 university students, 66% female) participants read summaries describing evidence for sexual orientation existing on a continuum versus discrete categories or a control manipulation, and in Study 2 (460 participants in a nationally representative Qualtrics panel, 50% female) additionally read summaries describing sexual orientation as fluid versus stable across the life-course. After reading summaries, participants answered various questions about their sexual orientation. In Study 1, political moderates and progressives (but not conservatives) who read the continuous manipulation subsequently reported being less exclusively heterosexual, and regardless of political alignment, participants reported less certainty about their sexual orientation, relative to controls. In Study 2, after exposure to fluid or continuous manipulations heterosexual participants were up to five times more likely than controls to rate themselves as non-exclusively heterosexual. Additionally, those in the continuous condition reported less certainty about their sexual orientation and were more willing to engage in future same-sex sexual experiences, than those in the control condition. These results suggest that non-traditional theories of sexual orientation can lead heterosexuals to embrace less exclusive heterosexual orientations.