Disentangling Gender-Based Attitudes from Sexuality-Based Attitude: The Person-Based Approach to Measuring Implicit Attitudes Toward Gay Men and Lesbian Women

• Published in: Journal of homosexuality 2024-08, Vol.71 (10), p.2366-2399
• Main Authors: Anderson, Joel R., de la Piedad Garcia, Xochitl, Falomir-Pichastor, Juan Manuel, Kaufmann, Leah M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; anti-gay attitudes; Attitude; Attitudes; contextual variation; Female; Gays & lesbians; Gender; Go/No Go Association Task; Homosexuality; Homosexuality, Female - psychology; Homosexuality, Male - psychology; Humans; implicit attitudes; implicit social cognition; Lesbianism; Male; Men; Middle Aged; Sexual and Gender Minorities - psychology; sexual prejudice; Sexuality; Social categories; Stimuli; Women; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0091-8369; 1540-3602; 1540-3602
• DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2023.2233657

In this paper, we present the person-based approach to measuring implicit attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women-this approach uses face stimuli rather than traditionally used symbols, and creates salient social categories through contextual variation techniques. Across 5 experiments using the Go/No Go Association Task (n = 364), we present evidence that the person-based approach can disentangle implicit gender-based attitudes from implicit sexuality-based attitudes, that these attitudes vary as a function of participant gender and sexuality, and that they are different to attitudes elicited by typically used stimuli. We demonstrate that implicit person-based gender attitudes toward straight and gay people are similar and are consistent with the literature (i.e. attitudes toward [lesbian] women are more positive than attitudes toward [gay] men). However, we reveal a reversed pattern of findings for person-based implicit sexuality attitudes (i.e. attitudes toward gay men are more positive than attitudes toward lesbian women). These findings suggest that the person-based approach uniquely captures nuanced implicit attitudes toward gay men and lesbians, raising important questions regarding previous findings.