"I'm not gay... I'm a real man!": Heterosexual Men's Gender Self-Esteem and Sexual...

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"I'm not gay... I'm a real man!": Heterosexual Men's Gender Self-Esteem and Sexual Prejudice

Abstract

Five studies examined the hypothesis that heterosexual men, but not heterosexual women, endorse negative attitudes toward homosexuality (i.e., sexual prejudice) in order to maintain a positive gender-related identity that is unambiguously different from a homosexual identity. Studies 1 and 2 showed that men's (but not women's) gender self-esteem (but not personal self-esteem) was positively related to sexual prejudice: The more positive heterosexual men's gender self-esteem, the more negative their attitude toward homosexuality. Studies 3 and 4 showed that this link appears specifically among men motivated to maintain psychological distance from gay men. Study 5 experimentally manipulated the perceived biological differences between homosexual and heterosexual men. The previously observed link between men's gender self-esteem and sexual prejudice appeared in the control and no-differences conditions but disappeared in the differences condition. These findings are discussed in terms of men's attitudes as a defensive function against threat to masculinity.

Keywords

  • gender self-esteem;
  • intergroup attitudes;
  • sex differences;
  • sexual prejudice;
  • intergroup differentiation;
  • identity threat;
  • biological differences

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Publication information

Publisher:

Sage Journals, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Volume 35, Issue 9, pp. 1233-1243

Languages:

English

Media Type:

PDF

City:

Washington

Year:

2009

Disciplines:

Research labels:

Sexual orientation
Masculinities

Subjects:

Social psychology

Genres:

Article