Perceived erotic value of homosexuality and sex-role attitudes as mediators of sex differences in heterosexual college students' attitudes toward lesbians and gay men

Journal of Sex Research, Spring, 1997 by Laura A. Louiderback, Bernard E. Whitley, Jr.

Two of the most consistent findings in attitude research have been that heterosexuals' attitudes toward lesbians and gay men are negative and that American society finds this negativity to be acceptable. Whether this research is conducted using convenience samples of college students (e.g., Herek, 1984, 1986; Kite, 1994) or national survey samples (e.g., Herek, 1991; Herek & Capitanio, 1996; Herek & Glunt, 1993), it reveals widespread anti-gay prejudice. This line of research has also uncovered a number of factors associated with anti-gay prejudice. For example, people who hold negative attitudes toward lesbians and gay men are typically higher in authoritarianism, more traditional in their sex-role attitudes, less well educated, and more negative toward members of other minority groups than are their less prejudiced peers (see reviews by Herek, 1984, 1991).

Research on the factors associated with attitudes toward lesbians and gay men also has shown that heterosexual men hold more negative views than do heterosexual women. (For simplicity, in the rest of this article the terms men and women refer to heterosexual men and women except when it is necessary to distinguish between people of heterosexual and homosexual orientation.) For example, in a meta-analysis of 109 studies of the relationship between sex of respondent and attitudes toward lesbians and gay men, Kite and Whitley (1996) found that sex differences averaged .38 standard deviations, with men's attitudes more negative than women's. Kite and Whitley also found that the sex of the attitude target (i.e., lesbian or gay man) interacted with respondent sex to affect attitudes: Men were more negative than women when rating gay men, but there were no sex differences in the ratings of lesbians. Within the male and female respondent groups, women made approximately equal ratings of lesbians and gay men, but men's ratings of lesbians were less negative than their ratings of gay men.

To provide a theoretical context for understanding these sex differences, Kite and Whitley (1996) drew on the concept of a generalized gender belief system, defined by Deaux and Kite (1987) as "a set of beliefs and opinions about males and females and about the purported qualities of masculinity and femininity" (p. 97). This belief system includes such factors as stereotypes about men and women, attitudes toward appropriate roles for the sexes, and perceptions of those who presumably violate the traditional pattern of sex roles, including lesbians and gay men. Research on gender-associated beliefs suggests that people's responses to others are based on an assumption that what is not feminine is masculine and vice versa. People expect others to fit into a relatively stable set of gender roles, traits, and physical attributes, generally believing, for example, that a person who is either masculine or feminine in one aspect of behavior is similarly masculine or feminine in other aspects of behavior.

Kite and Whitley (1996) suggested that the gender belief system contributes to sex differences in attitudes toward homosexuality by defining appropriate behaviors for women and men. Because gender-associated norms are more rigidly defined for men than for women (Herek, 1986; Hort, Fagot, & Leinbach, 1990), society tends to have a more negative reaction toward men who have more feminine traits than to women who have more masculine traits (e.g., Page & Yee, 1985). Thus, a man's breaking out of the mold of the traditional male role is a much more serious sex-role violation than a woman breaking out of her mold. Because society expects men to avoid female traits or activities and because gay men are often thought to possess inappropriate sex roles (e.g., Kite & Deaux, 1987), men may feel pressured by society to have negative feelings toward homosexuality and especially toward gay men. Because women may feel less pressured continually to validate their femininity, they may be less motivated to make differential ratings of lesbians and gay men.

One implication of Kite and Whitley's (1996) analysis is that people who are more strongly invested in the gender belief system should have more negative attitudes toward lesbians and gay men because homosexuality violates the norms of that belief system. A second implication is that because of the socialization pressures induced by the system, men are more invested in it than are women and so hold more negative attitudes toward homosexuality. Therefore, sex differences in factors associated with the gender belief system, such as traditional sex-role attitudes, may mediate sex differences in attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. The results of Kite and Whitley's meta-analysis supported these predictions: Men held more traditional sex-role attitudes than did women, with an average correlation of .33 between sex of respondent and traditional sex-role attitudes; people holding more traditional sex-role attitudes held more negative attitudes toward homosexuality, with an average correlation of .44, and with sex-role attitudes controlled, sex differences in attitudes toward homosexuality virtually disappeared: The mean partial correlation was .02.