Reducing heterosexuals' prejudice toward gay men and lesbian women via an induced cross-orientation friendship

Ashley Lytle, Sheri R. Levy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

There is limited correlational research on whether cross-orientation friendships reduce heterosexuals' sexual prejudice, and no existing experimental studies on the impact of simulated cross-orientation friendships on attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women. The current study involved a novel and experimental examination of whether simulated cross-orientation friendships would reduce sexual prejudice. College student participants (White heterosexual) completed an experimental-manipulated closeness exercise (the fast friends procedure; Aron, Melinat, Aron, Vallone, & Bator, 1997) with a confederate (matched to participants' gender). Participants were randomly assigned to undergo the fast friends procedure with a confederate who either did not reveal his or her sexual orientation (control condition) or revealed being gay or lesbian at the beginning (reveal-beginning condition) or end of the interaction (reveal-end condition). As predicted, participants in both experimental conditions relative to those in a control condition reported significantly improved attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women (pre- to postexperiment), greater feelings of interpersonal closeness, and more positive behavior (longer and friendlier responses following disclosure of sexual orientation). The experimental conditions did not differ from each other. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)447-455
Number of pages9
JournalPsychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity
Volume2
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2015

Keywords

  • Contact
  • Cross-orientation friendships
  • Disclosure
  • Sexual orientation
  • Sexual prejudice

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