HOMOPHOBIA AND HOMOSOCIALITY:. An Analysis of Boundary Maintenance

Homophobia, a term often used to describe hostile reactions to lesbians and gay men, implies a unidimensional construct of attitudes as expressions of irrational fears. This paper argues that a more complex view is needed of the psychology of positive and negative attitudes toward homosexual persons. Based upon a review of previous empirical research, a model is proposed that distinguishes three types of attitudes according to the social psychological function they serve: (1) experiential, categorizing social reality by one's past interactions with homosexual persons; (2) defensive, coping with one's inner conflicts or anxieties by projecting them onto homosexual persons; and (3) symbolic, expressing abstract ideological concepts that are closely linked to one's notion of self and to one's social network and reference groups. Strategies are proposed for changing attitudes serving each of the functions. The importance of distinguishing attitudes toward lesbians from those focused on gay men is also discussed. Show more

This paper reports a series of factor analyses of responses to attitude statements about lesbians and gay men. Using a common factor model with oblique rotation, a bipolar "Condemnation-Tolerance" factor was observed repeatedly in four separate samples of undergraduates. The factor accounts for 35-45% of the total common variance in responses, and is similar for male and female respondents and for questionnaires concerning both lesbians and gay men. A "Beliefs" factor accounts for another 5% of the total variance. It is argued that scales assessing attitudes toward lesbians and gay men should restrict their content to items loading highly on the Condemnation-Tolerance factor. Show more