Modern Homonegativity and LGBTQ Activism: The Role of Identity and Behaviour in Attitude Formation
Abstract
Although reported prejudice toward sexual minorities seems to be decreasing over time, sexual minorities themselves continue to report many experiences of prejudice and discrimination. One potential explanation for this discrepancy in the sexual prejudice literature is that explicit prejudice is being measured in a manner that is no longer culturally relevant, as proposed by Morrison and Morrison (2003) in the development of their Modern Homonegativity Scale. Modern homonegativity (MH) is characterized by negative attitudes toward behaviours and policies that benefit LGBTQ people, rather than a negative attitude toward homosexuality itself. The present work aimed to further the field’s understanding of MH and the role it plays in the formation of attitudes toward others. In Study 1, participants read one of three character profiles, each describing a gay man who volunteered with a particular group: an LGBTQ activism group, an environmental activism group, or a local library. Participants rated the target higher on negative trait descriptors when he was an LGBTQ activist. Study 2, a replication and extension of this work that included straight and female targets, showed a more complicated interaction of participant gender, target gender, target orientation, and target activism. A brief third study assessed which trait descriptors were most commonly applied to volunteers in order to ensure the validity of the outcome variables. Study 4 extended Studies 1 and 2 with the inclusion of MH as a predictor and with a behavioural measure added to the survey. The data from Study 4 suggested that MH contributes to the formation of negative attitudes across conditions, but that it also interacts with both activism condition and orientation to create negative attitudes. This supports the idea that although MH does interact with behavioural information to produce negative attitudes, it also interacts with orientation to produce less favourable attitudes toward gay targets even when activism is held constant. Implications for further work on MH and sexual prejudice in general are discussed.