Relation and determinants between explicit and implicit attitudes of heterosexuals toward gay men and lesbians

Cilj ovog istraživanja bio je ispitati odnos eksplicitnih i implicitnih mjera stavova prema gejevima i lezbijkama te provjeriti ulogu roda sudionika, važnosti vjere i kontakta s homoseksualnim osobama u predviđanju stavova prema gejevima i lezbijkama na eksplicitnim i implicitnim mjerama. Ispitivanje je provedeno na Odsjeku za psihologiju Filozofskog fakulteta u Zagrebu sa 239 sudionika. Za eksplicitnu mjeru stavova koristili smo Skalu stavova prema gejevima i lezbijkama, a za implicitnu mjeru stavova Test implicitnih asocijacija s jednom kategorijom. Eksplicitne i implicitne mjere stavova pokazale su nisku do umjerenu pozitivnu povezanost. Pokazalo se da su na implicitnim mjerama stavovi prema gejevima negativniji, nego prema lezbijkama, dok na eksplicitnim mjerama nije opažena takva razlika u stavovima. Rezultati nisu pokazali postojanje rodnih razlika ni na eksplicitnim, ni na implicitnim mjerama stavova. Važnost vjere pokazala se kao značajan prediktor stavova prema gejevima i lezbijkama na eksplicitnim mjerama, ali ne i na implicitnima. Sudionici kojima je vjera važnija imali su negativnije stavove prema gejevima i lezbijkama na eksplicitnoj mjeri stavova. Kontakt s homoseksualnim osobama je značajan prediktor stavova prema gejevima i lezbijkama na eksplicitnim mjerama, kao i na implicitnoj mjeri prema gejevima. Sudionici koji imaju češće i bliže kontakte s homoseksualnim osobama ujedno imaju i pozitivnije stavove prema njima, a to se prvenstveno odnosi na stavove prema gejevima.The goal of this research was to examine the relationship between explicit and implicit measure of attitudes toward gay men and lesbians, and to examine the importance of participants’ gender, religion and contact with homosexuals when predicting attitudes toward gay men and lesbians on explicit and implicit measures. Our research was conducted on 239 participants at Department of Psychology, on Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. For our explicit measure of attitudes we used The Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Man Scale, and for our implicit measure of attitudes we used “Single Category Implicit Association Test”. We found low to moderate positive correlation between explicit and implicit measure of attitudes. Attitudes toward gay men were more negative than toward lesbians on implicit measure, but there was no difference between them on explicit measure of attitudes. Results didn’t show any gender differences on either explicit or implicit measure of attitudes. Importance of religion was a strong predictor of attitudes on the explicit measure, but not on the implicit measure. Participants who found religion more important had more negative attitudes toward gay man and lesbians on explicit measure. Contact with homosexuals was an important predictor of attitudes toward gay men. Participants who had closer contact with homosexuals held more positive attitudes toward them, and this particularly refers to gay men