Abstract
We compared the relationship between gender role beliefs and antigay prejudice in Chile and the United States. Participants were Chilean and American university students. In Study 1, Chileans were more prejudiced than Americans, and men were more prejudiced than women. In Study 2, gender role beliefs mediated cultural and sex differences in prejudice. Chileans held more traditional gender role beliefs and were more antigay than Americans. Men were more prejudiced than women, particularly in their attitudes toward gay men. Further, sex differences in attitudes toward lesbians and gay men were completely mediated by gender role beliefs. Nationality differences in attitudes toward lesbians were completely mediated, and nationality differences in attitudes toward gay men were partially mediated, by gender role beliefs.
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Notes
Partial correlation was used to rule out the possibility that differences in gender role beliefs and prejudice could be accounted for by differences in Catholicism between Chileans and Americans. Because correlations did not change when statistically controlling for whether or not the participant was Catholic, this variable was dropped from the analysis.
A cross-groups analysis conducted in EQS 6.1 (Bentler 1995) verified that the mediation of the gender effect was upheld for both DVs in both countries. Lagrange multiplier tests (LM tests) were calculated for each parameter constrained to be equal across groups (Bentler 1995). A significant LM test suggests a parameter on which the two groups differ. In this case, none of the LM tests was significant in the ATG model (all p’s > .45) nor in the ATL model (all p’s > .14), indicating that the finding of mediation of the effects of sex of participant on antigay prejudice was equivalent across nationalities for both DVs.
Construct validity of the translated measures can be demonstrated by showing that religiosity (“Please rate the extent to which you are religious”) is correlated with the ATLG (r (153) = .51, p < .001; r (100) = .30, p < .01) and the GRBS (r (152) = .32, p < .001; r (96) = .29, p < .01) for both the American and the Chilean samples, respectively.
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Nierman, A.J., Thompson, S.C., Bryan, A. et al. Gender Role Beliefs and Attitudes toward Lesbians and Gay Men in Chile and the U.S.. Sex Roles 57, 61–67 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-007-9197-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-007-9197-1