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The Social Determinants of Polymorphous Prejudice Against Lesbian and Gay Individuals: the Case of Portugal

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Abstract

In the present article, we analyze polymorphous prejudice against lesbians and gays according to a sample of Portuguese heterosexual individuals. We tested the differential importance of demographic-, ideological-, and psychological-level variables to predicting this phenomenon. Our results show that male, Catholic, right-wing respondents with fewer lesbian and gay (LG) friends prove the group exhibiting the highest levels of polymorphous prejudice. Furthermore, the introduction of psychological-level variables into the regression models increased the explained variance in polymorphous prejudice, above and beyond the remaining predictors. Additionally, we report different patterns of results when deploying regression analyses at the level of the sub-scales of polymorphous prejudice. We discuss our results within the light of contemporary sexual prejudice frameworks before reviewing the utility of results to interventions targeting discriminated LG individuals.

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Notes

  1. Previous hierarchical regression analyses were conducted so as to determine whether the specific interaction terms between the sociodemographic, ideological, and psychological variables would increase the explained variance of PP. These interaction terms were introduced as a 4th step to these analytical processes. Additionally, and to avoid issues of multicollinearity that are common when introducing interaction terms into multiple regression (cf., Draper and Smith 1966), orthogonalized predictors were built following the Gram-Schmidt procedure as described in Draper and Smith (1966); for an illustration, see Burril (2006). Briefly, this procedure suggests building an interaction term composed only by the residual component of the interaction; this interaction term is, in turn, regressed on the dependent variable. The following interaction terms were regressed on the PP total score, as well as on its dimensions, all yielding non-significant results: discrimination deservingness × gender; discrimination deservingness × age; discrimination deservingness × education; discrimination deservingness × LG friends; discrimination deservingness × political positioning; discrimination deservingness × religion; discrimination recognition × gender; discrimination recognition × age; discrimination recognition × education; discrimination recognition × LG friends; discrimination recognition × political positioning; discrimination recognition × religion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIS-IUL, Av. das Forcas Armadas, 1649-026, Lisbon, Portugal

    Diniz Lopes & João Manuel de Oliveira

  2. Faculdade de Psicologia e Ciências da Educação, Centro de Psicologia da Universidade do Porto, Rua Alfredo Allen, 4200-135, Porto, Portugal

    Conceição Nogueira & Rita Grave

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  1. Diniz Lopes
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  2. João Manuel de Oliveira
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  3. Conceição Nogueira
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  4. Rita Grave
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Correspondence to Diniz Lopes.

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Lopes, D., de Oliveira, J.M., Nogueira, C. et al. The Social Determinants of Polymorphous Prejudice Against Lesbian and Gay Individuals: the Case of Portugal. Sex Res Soc Policy 14, 56–70 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-016-0230-4

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