Effects of gay and lesbian speaker panels on self-report measures of individual homophobia

Vita.This study used a Solomon Four-Group Design (Solomon, 1949) to study the effects of a well-structured gay and lesbian speaker panel intervention on self-report measures of cognitive, affective, and behavioral homophobia. The subjects, 200 female and 120 male undergraduate students enrolled in human sexuality classes at a large southwestern university, were randomly assigned to pretest or no pretest conditions and were asked to complete questionnaires accordingly. The dependent variable, homophobia, was assessed in three ways. Cognitive homophobia was measured by the Index of Attitudes Toward Homosexuals (Hudson & Ricketts, 1980); affective homophobia was assessed by the Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men (Herek, 1988) scales. Behavioral homophobia was determined by the Posttest Evaluation Questionnaire that was developed specifically for the present study. All subjects completed the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale-Form C (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960; Reynolds, 1982) as a formalized check on social desirability response tendencies. It was hypothesized that cognitive, affective and behavioral self-report levels of homophobia would decrease following interaction with a gay and lesbian speaker panel. Also, it was predicted that cognitive homophobia levels would decrease more than affective homophobia, which would in turn decrease more than behavioral homophobia levels. Multivariate results showed that cognitive and affective homophobia levels did decrease. There were no changes noted in behavioral homophobia as a result of the intervention. One month follow-up data indicated that the effects for the experimental groups were maintained over time. It was also hypothesized that women would report lower levels of homophobia than men for cognitive, affective, and behavioral homophobia, and that all subjects would report lower levels of homophobia toward lesbians than gay men. Results showed that women reported lower levels of all types of homophobia in all areas except for homophobia toward lesbians, in which they reported levels equivalent to that reported by men. All subjects reported lower levels of homophobia toward lesbians than gay men