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The Role of Selection Effects in the Contact Hypothesis: Results from a U.S. National Survey on Sexual Prejudice

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Abstract

Empirical research has documented that contact with lesbians and gays is associated with more positive feelings toward and greater support for legal rights for them, but we know less about whether these effects extend to informal aspects of same-sex relationships, such as reactions to public displays of affection. Furthermore, many studies have assumed that contact influences levels of sexual prejudice; however, the possibility of selection effects, in which less sexually prejudiced people have contact, and more sexually prejudiced people do not, raises some doubts about this assumption. We used original data from a nationally representative sample of heterosexuals to determine whether those reporting contact with a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender friend or relative exhibited less sexual prejudice toward lesbian and gay couples than those without contact. This study examined the effect of contact on attitudes toward formal rights and a relatively unexplored dimension, informal privileges. We estimated the effect of having contact using traditional (ordinary least squares regression) methods before accounting for selection effects using propensity score matching. After accounting for selection effects, we found no significant differences between the attitudes of those who had contact and those who did not, for either formal or informal measures. Thus, selection effects appeared to play a pivotal role in confounding the link between contact and sexual prejudice, and future studies should exercise caution in interpreting results that do not account for such selection effects.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Brian Powell, Eliza Pavalko, Erick Janssen, the anonymous reviewers, and the Editor for insightful comments and excellent suggestions on various drafts of this article. This article was presented at Indiana University’s Gender/Race/Class workshop, the Sexual Science Research Seminar, and the Social Stratification and Individual Lives Seminar. We thank members of the workshop and seminar for their valuable comments and suggestions. We gratefully acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation through a Graduate Research Fellowship to the second author (NSF Grant DGE-0813962) and the Williams Institute’s Small Grants Program for this project. We thank Jack Martin for help with the Williams Institute grant. Data for this project were collected by Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS), NSF Grant 0818839, and we thank the TESS PIs, Jeremy Freese and Penny Visser, and anonymous reviewers for their suggestions on our design. Opinions, findings, and conclusions presented in this article are ours and do not necessarily represent the views of any of these funding organizations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Indiana University, 744 Ballantine Hall, Bloomington, IN, 47405-3700, USA

    Annalise Loehr, Long Doan & Lisa R. Miller

Authors
  1. Annalise Loehr
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  2. Long Doan
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  3. Lisa R. Miller
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Annalise Loehr.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Question Wording

Items were coded in the analyses so that 1 = Strongly disagree, 2 = Somewhat disagree, 3 = Somewhat agree, and 4 = Strongly agree. To facilitate participants’ understandings of the partnership benefits questions, contextualizing information introduced all of these items. Questions briefly explained that one of the couple members was seriously ill (family leave), had been hospitalized after a car accident (hospital visitation rights), did not have health insurance (health insurance benefits), or had died unexpectedly without living relatives or a last will and testament (inheritance rights).

Formal Rights

  1. 1.

    Family leave.

    To what extent do you agree or disagree that [the vignette characters] should be able to take time off from work without being paid to take care of the sick partner?

  2. 2.

    Hospital visitation.

    To what extent do you agree or disagree that [the vignette characters] should have hospital visitation rights that parents, children, and husbands and wives have?

  3. 3.

    Insurance benefits.

    To what extent do you agree or disagree that [the vignette characters] should have health insurance benefits for the partner?

  4. 4.

    Inheritance rights.

    To what extent do you agree or disagree that [the vignette characters] should have inheritance rights similar to a husband and wife?

Informal Privileges

  1. 1.

    Tell others.

    To what extent do you agree or disagree that it is okay for [the vignette characters] to tell others that they are a couple?

  1. 2.

    Hold hands.

    To what extent do you agree or disagree that it is okay for [the vignette characters] to hold each other’s hands in a park?

  1. 3.

    Kiss on cheek.

    To what extent do you agree or disagree that it is okay for [the vignette characters] to give each other a kiss on the cheek in a park?

  1. 4.

    French kiss.

    To what extent do you agree or disagree that it is okay for [the vignette characters] to French kiss in a park?

Appendix 2

Vignette Wording

Vignette character names were chosen to signal membership in similar birth cohorts to reduce the potentially confounding effects of perceived age differences between the partners. In the United States, “Brian,” “Jennifer,” “Matt,” and “Heather” were all within the top 20 most popular names for the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Instructions

We would like to know what you think about the following unmarried couple. Please take some time to form an impression about the couple once you have read their story. Next, please answer the questions that follow.

Vignette 1: The gay couple Brian and Matt met 3 years ago and were immediately attracted to each other. After going on a few dates, Brian told Matt that he wanted to see him exclusively, to which Matt happily agreed; they’ve been together ever since. Although Brian and Matt have had serious arguments, they both report being happy when they are together. Brian and Matt feel complete trust in each other. In fact, they’ve lived together for the past 2 years.

Vignette 2: The lesbian couple Heather and Jennifer met 3 years ago and were immediately attracted to each other. After going on a few dates, Heather told Jennifer that she wanted to see her exclusively, to which Jennifer happily agreed; they’ve been together ever since. Although Heather and Jennifer have had serious arguments, they both report being happy when they are together. Heather and Jennifer feel complete trust in each other. In fact, they’ve lived together for the past 2 years.

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Loehr, A., Doan, L. & Miller, L.R. The Role of Selection Effects in the Contact Hypothesis: Results from a U.S. National Survey on Sexual Prejudice. Arch Sex Behav 44, 2111–2123 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-015-0483-7

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