A Cross-Racial Study of Attitudes toward and Beliefs about Male Homosexuality

This study presents data about the attitudes toward homosexuality of black and white people. The survey used in this study was adapted from Furnham and Saito (2009) which compared the attitudes and beliefs about male homosexuality of British and Japanese participants. The sample consisted of 131 (37 black, 97 white) Winthrop students. The results were analyzed using T-tests. The results of the study were consistent with the literature in inconsistency, of the 17 categories tested significant racial differences were found in 6. There were no significant racial differences in beliefs about the following factors: Attributing homosexuality to biological causes, the role of gender roles in causing homosexuality, a relatively high percentage of all participants believed that factors such as father-son relationships could cause homosexuality, belief that abnormality caused homosexuality, although abnormality was the least favored of all the factors. There were significant racial differences in the following factors: The black participants were significantly more likely to believe that contact with homosexuals contributed to homosexuality, black participants were significantly more likely than whites to believe that the rights of homosexuals should be protected, the white participants were much more likely to hold stereotypical views of homosexuals. The size effect was small for all factors