Full Citation
Title: Beyond generalized sexual prejudice: Need for closure predicts negative attitudes toward bisexual people relative to gay/lesbian people
Citation Type: Journal Article
Publication Year: 2017
ISBN:
ISSN: 00221031
DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2017.02.003
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID: 28983126
Abstract: Increasing evidence suggests that bisexual people are sometimes evaluated more negatively than heterosexual and gay/lesbian people. A common theoretical account for this discrepancy argues that bisexuality is perceived by some as introducing ambiguity into a binary model of sexuality. The present brief report tests a single key prediction of this theory, that evaluations of bisexual people have a unique relationship with Need for Closure (NFC), a dispositional preference for simple ways of structuring information. Participants (n=3406) were heterosexual medical students from a stratified random sample of 49 U.S. medical schools. As in prior research, bisexual targets were evaluated slightly more negatively than gay/lesbian targets overall. More importantly for the present investigation, higher levels of NFC predicted negative evaluations of bisexual people after accounting for negative evaluations of gay/lesbian people, and higher levels of NFC also predicted an explicit evaluative preference for gay/lesbian people over bisexual people. These results suggest that differences in evaluations of sexual minority groups partially reflect different psychological processes, and that NFC may have a special relevance for bisexual targets even beyond its general association with prejudice. The practical value of testing this theory on new physicians is also discussed.
Url: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28983126
Url: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=PMC5624340
Url: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0022103116303559
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Burke, Sara E.; Dovidio, John F.; LaFrance, Marianne; Przedworski, Julia M; Perry, Sylvia P.; Phelan, Sean M.; Burgess, Diana J.; Hardeman, Rachel; Yeazel, Mark W.; van Ryn, Michelle
Periodical (Full): Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Issue:
Volume: 71
Pages: 145-150
Countries: