Abstract
Interest in consensually non-monogamous (CNM) relationships has been increasing in the general population in recent years. However, given the cultural dominance of monogamy and the normative expectations often imposed through socialization (i.e., mononormativity), people in CNM relationships may experience negativity, which can become internalized and harm their individual and relationship health. The present study investigated if mononormativity beliefs and CNM relationship stigma were associated with more dehumanization and if internalized CNM negativity was an underlying mechanism for these associations. Results showed that participants who endorsed more mononormative beliefs and CNM relationship stigma also reported more internalized CNM negativity. In turn, participants who experienced more internalized CNM negativity attributed more negative (vs. positive) emotions to themselves and treated their partners as more immature, unrefined, exploitable, and emotionless. These results show that mononormativity and internalized negativity can shape the attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors of CNM individuals toward themselves and their partners.
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Data availability
All materials, anonymized data, and syntaxes that support our findings are available on our Open Science Framework page (https://osf.io/kdjya/).
Code Availability
Not applicable.
Notes
Due to a programming error, we were unable to collect participants’ age.
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Acknowledgements
We want to thank the owners of Instagram pages (e.g., Beyond Monogamy; Rambóia Com Moderação; Polyamorous Awareness; Unapolygetically), the moderators of Facebook groups (e.g., Positive Polyamory; Polyamory and Open Relationships Discussion Worldwide), and Reddit Communities (r/polyfamilies, r/Swingers, r/OpenMarriage), for allowing us to share the link to our study and helping with data collection.
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Part of this work was funded by a grant awarded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia to DLR (Ref.: 2020.00523.CEECIND).
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Rodrigues, D.L., Brooks, T.R., Balzarini, R.N. et al. Examining the Role of Mononormative Beliefs, Stigma, and Internalized Consensual Non-Monogamy Negativity for Dehumanization. Arch Sex Behav 53, 889–899 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02785-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02785-2