Predictors of Attitudes Toward Gay Men and Lesbian Women in 23 Countries

Abstract

Dominant accounts of sexual prejudice posit that negative attitudes toward nonheterosexual individuals are stronger for male (vs. female) targets, higher among men (vs. women), and driven, in part, by the perception that gay men and lesbian women violate traditional gender norms. We test these predictions in 23 countries, representing both Western and non-Western societies. Results show that (1) gay men are disliked more than lesbian women across all countries; (2) after adjusting for endorsement of traditional gender norms, the relationship between participant gender and sexual prejudice is inconsistent across Western countries, but men (vs. women) in non-Western countries consistently report more negative attitudes toward gay men; and (3) a significant association between gender norm endorsement and sexual prejudice across countries, but it was absent or reversed in China, India, and South Korea. Taken together, this work suggests that gender and sexuality may be more loosely associated in some non-Western contexts.

The New Genetic Evidence on Same-Gender Sexuality: Implications for Sexual Fluidity and Multiple Forms of Sexual Diversity

“…One possibility is that for men, "mostly heterosexuality" is more reflective of underlying bisexuality than a generalized sexual openness or risk tolerance (consistent with findings on "mostly heterosexual" men's patterns of genital arousal, Jabbour et al, 2020). Across the globe, men's samegender sexuality is more stigmatized than women's samegender sexuality (Bettinsoli et al, 2019), and women's samegender sexuality is often eroticized for heterosexual men (Diamond, 2008;Fahs, 2009). Heterosexual women occupy cultural environments replete with positive images of "occasional" female-female eroticism, including film and television depictions of heterosexually-identified women experimenting with and enjoying sporadic same-gender sexual contact (Diamond, 2005;Yost & McCarthy, 2012).…”

“…Finally, the greater social condemnation of gender nonconformity and same-gender sexuality among men than among women plays an additional role. In the contemporary West and around the world, men and women have more negative attitudes about men's same-gender sexuality than about women's same-gender sexuality (Bettinsoli et al, 2019), which may reflect hegemonic notions of masculinity that require strict adherence to the masculine gender role, especially in the domain of sexual contact (Goodnight et al, 2014;Herek, 1986;Van Beusekom et al, 2019). As a result of these rigid norms, men with bisexual patterns of attraction may experience more social pressure to maintain strictly heterosexual identities and relationships than do bisexual women.…”

Heteronormativity, Disgust Sensitivity, and Hostile Attitudes toward Gay Men: Potential Mechanisms to Maintain Social Hierarchies

“…Because a majority of disgust research examining the two groups utilizes a conflated category, such as lesbians and gay men , it currently is unclear if lesbians elicit less disgust than gay men. However, previous research indicates that men's prejudicial attitudes toward lesbians, while extant, are less severe than they are toward gay men (Bettinsoli et al 2019). Therefore, it is possible that lesbians pose a smaller threat to the social hierarchy and elicit less disgust than gay men, but this line of research is too young to make conclusions.…”

“…Meta-analytic findings have highlighted the robust association between disgust and antigay attitudes, with results indicating a moderate-to-large effect across studies . Interestingly, there is some evidence to suggest that the effect of disgust on attitudes is larger in response to gay men than to lesbian women (Cunningham et al 2013;Inbar et al 2012), which may partially explain society's generally greater dislike of gay men compared to lesbian women (Bettinsoli et al 2019). Therefore, further research attentive to the influence of disgust on prejudicial attitudes toward gay men, in particular, seems warranted.…”

Examining physiological and self‐report indicators of empathy during learners’ interaction with a queer history app

“…It should be pointed out, however, that relative to other studies of physiological measures of British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 51 No 6 2020 emotion in education, this study had a good overall sample size, even if it might still be classified as small at 50. A related limitation of our small sample size was our inability to properly examine additional individual differences associated with attitudes toward LGBTQ+ people and/or outgroup empathy more generally, such as culture, religion and ethnicity (Bettinsoli, Suppes, & Napier, 2020;Cikara, Bruneau, & Saxe, 2011;Moreno et al, 2020;Zaki, 2014).…”