Can we measure subtle discrimination of homosexuals? The effects of learning persons' sexual orientation and appearance on interaction intentions
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Although members of LGBT community are often faced with overt discrimination, they report being even more frequently exposed to subtle discrimination – non-obvious, often unintentional, however biased treatment. Due to its subtle nature, it is difficult to detect. One of its forms might be presuming gender-atypical appearance (feminine males or masculine females) to be a predictor of homosexual orientation, as well as the behaviour that emerges from this biased presumption. Having in mind that deviations from male gender roles and typical appearance are more severely sanctioned than deviations from female roles, males could be more exposed to this type of bias.
In the current research, we focused on how (a) gender-atypical appearance and (b) information about sexual orientation (SO) affect the willingness to cooperate with the persons concerned. To test this, we devised a within-subjects design – 2 (appearance typicality: masculine/feminine) x 2 (sexual orientation: hetero/homosexual)..., with interaction intention as a dependent variable assessed before and after exposing SO. Gender-typicality of appearance was operationalized via photographs depicting the stimulus-persons in typically masculine or feminine sitting postures, while their SO was provided via short profiles. Firstly, the participants’ task was to specify the extent to which they were willing to cooperate with the stimuli-persons regarding their physical
appearance, and afterwards to provide the same estimation by combining the information about their SO. Willingness for cooperation was assessed on the 7-point Likert scale. Drawing from a convenient sample of 41 heterosexual men, aged 19-47 (M=21.463, SD=4.382), we demonstrated that subjects initially preferred cooperation with people depicted in masculine posture as opposed to those in feminine posture (M(m)=4.213, SD(m)=0.914; M(f)=3.567, SD(f)=1.095; F(1,40)=16.106, p=.000, η2=.287). As expected, after being provided with information about stimuli person’s SO, subjects increased ratings of those who were pictured in feminine posture but labelled as heterosexuals (M1=3.567, SD1=1.095; M2=4.232, SD2=1.230; F(1,40)=14.179, p=.000, η2=.262). We interpreted this change as a subtle way of discriminating homosexuals – or to put it differently, of favouring heterosexuals. Their robustness needs to be further backed up with evidence, however, the paradigm we designed seems suitable to detect this type of bias.
Keywords:
lgbt / gender identity / subtle discrimination / masculinity/femininity of appearance / sexual orientationSource:
Book of abstracts, XXIV Scientific Conference “Empirical Studies in Psychology”, Belgrade, 2018, 131-132Publisher:
- Institut za psihologiju i Laboratorija za eksperimentalnu psihologiju
Institution/Community
Psihologija / PsychologyTY - CONF AU - Ninković, Milica AU - Paunović, Dunja AU - Vulić, Katarina AU - Vojvodić, Sofija AU - Žeželj, Iris PY - 2018 UR - http://reff.f.bg.ac.rs/handle/123456789/4645 AB - Although members of LGBT community are often faced with overt discrimination, they report being even more frequently exposed to subtle discrimination – non-obvious, often unintentional, however biased treatment. Due to its subtle nature, it is difficult to detect. One of its forms might be presuming gender-atypical appearance (feminine males or masculine females) to be a predictor of homosexual orientation, as well as the behaviour that emerges from this biased presumption. Having in mind that deviations from male gender roles and typical appearance are more severely sanctioned than deviations from female roles, males could be more exposed to this type of bias. In the current research, we focused on how (a) gender-atypical appearance and (b) information about sexual orientation (SO) affect the willingness to cooperate with the persons concerned. To test this, we devised a within-subjects design – 2 (appearance typicality: masculine/feminine) x 2 (sexual orientation: hetero/homosexual), with interaction intention as a dependent variable assessed before and after exposing SO. Gender-typicality of appearance was operationalized via photographs depicting the stimulus-persons in typically masculine or feminine sitting postures, while their SO was provided via short profiles. Firstly, the participants’ task was to specify the extent to which they were willing to cooperate with the stimuli-persons regarding their physical appearance, and afterwards to provide the same estimation by combining the information about their SO. Willingness for cooperation was assessed on the 7-point Likert scale. Drawing from a convenient sample of 41 heterosexual men, aged 19-47 (M=21.463, SD=4.382), we demonstrated that subjects initially preferred cooperation with people depicted in masculine posture as opposed to those in feminine posture (M(m)=4.213, SD(m)=0.914; M(f)=3.567, SD(f)=1.095; F(1,40)=16.106, p=.000, η2=.287). As expected, after being provided with information about stimuli person’s SO, subjects increased ratings of those who were pictured in feminine posture but labelled as heterosexuals (M1=3.567, SD1=1.095; M2=4.232, SD2=1.230; F(1,40)=14.179, p=.000, η2=.262). We interpreted this change as a subtle way of discriminating homosexuals – or to put it differently, of favouring heterosexuals. Their robustness needs to be further backed up with evidence, however, the paradigm we designed seems suitable to detect this type of bias. PB - Institut za psihologiju i Laboratorija za eksperimentalnu psihologiju C3 - Book of abstracts, XXIV Scientific Conference “Empirical Studies in Psychology”, Belgrade T1 - Can we measure subtle discrimination of homosexuals? The effects of learning persons' sexual orientation and appearance on interaction intentions EP - 132 SP - 131 UR - https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_reff_4645 ER -
@conference{ author = "Ninković, Milica and Paunović, Dunja and Vulić, Katarina and Vojvodić, Sofija and Žeželj, Iris", year = "2018", abstract = "Although members of LGBT community are often faced with overt discrimination, they report being even more frequently exposed to subtle discrimination – non-obvious, often unintentional, however biased treatment. Due to its subtle nature, it is difficult to detect. One of its forms might be presuming gender-atypical appearance (feminine males or masculine females) to be a predictor of homosexual orientation, as well as the behaviour that emerges from this biased presumption. Having in mind that deviations from male gender roles and typical appearance are more severely sanctioned than deviations from female roles, males could be more exposed to this type of bias. In the current research, we focused on how (a) gender-atypical appearance and (b) information about sexual orientation (SO) affect the willingness to cooperate with the persons concerned. To test this, we devised a within-subjects design – 2 (appearance typicality: masculine/feminine) x 2 (sexual orientation: hetero/homosexual), with interaction intention as a dependent variable assessed before and after exposing SO. Gender-typicality of appearance was operationalized via photographs depicting the stimulus-persons in typically masculine or feminine sitting postures, while their SO was provided via short profiles. Firstly, the participants’ task was to specify the extent to which they were willing to cooperate with the stimuli-persons regarding their physical appearance, and afterwards to provide the same estimation by combining the information about their SO. Willingness for cooperation was assessed on the 7-point Likert scale. Drawing from a convenient sample of 41 heterosexual men, aged 19-47 (M=21.463, SD=4.382), we demonstrated that subjects initially preferred cooperation with people depicted in masculine posture as opposed to those in feminine posture (M(m)=4.213, SD(m)=0.914; M(f)=3.567, SD(f)=1.095; F(1,40)=16.106, p=.000, η2=.287). As expected, after being provided with information about stimuli person’s SO, subjects increased ratings of those who were pictured in feminine posture but labelled as heterosexuals (M1=3.567, SD1=1.095; M2=4.232, SD2=1.230; F(1,40)=14.179, p=.000, η2=.262). We interpreted this change as a subtle way of discriminating homosexuals – or to put it differently, of favouring heterosexuals. Their robustness needs to be further backed up with evidence, however, the paradigm we designed seems suitable to detect this type of bias.", publisher = "Institut za psihologiju i Laboratorija za eksperimentalnu psihologiju", journal = "Book of abstracts, XXIV Scientific Conference “Empirical Studies in Psychology”, Belgrade", title = "Can we measure subtle discrimination of homosexuals? The effects of learning persons' sexual orientation and appearance on interaction intentions", pages = "132-131", url = "https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_reff_4645" }
Ninković, M., Paunović, D., Vulić, K., Vojvodić, S.,& Žeželj, I.. (2018). Can we measure subtle discrimination of homosexuals? The effects of learning persons' sexual orientation and appearance on interaction intentions. in Book of abstracts, XXIV Scientific Conference “Empirical Studies in Psychology”, Belgrade Institut za psihologiju i Laboratorija za eksperimentalnu psihologiju., 131-132. https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_reff_4645
Ninković M, Paunović D, Vulić K, Vojvodić S, Žeželj I. Can we measure subtle discrimination of homosexuals? The effects of learning persons' sexual orientation and appearance on interaction intentions. in Book of abstracts, XXIV Scientific Conference “Empirical Studies in Psychology”, Belgrade. 2018;:131-132. https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_reff_4645 .
Ninković, Milica, Paunović, Dunja, Vulić, Katarina, Vojvodić, Sofija, Žeželj, Iris, "Can we measure subtle discrimination of homosexuals? The effects of learning persons' sexual orientation and appearance on interaction intentions" in Book of abstracts, XXIV Scientific Conference “Empirical Studies in Psychology”, Belgrade (2018):131-132, https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_reff_4645 .