The antecedents of attitudes toward homosexuality: a comparison of the effects of disgust, openness, religion and contact on anti-gay attitudes

In this study, I examined the structure of predictors of attitudes toward homosexuality in a sample of nearly 800 respondents. Predictors included measures of personality (Openness to Experience), emotion (Disgust), beliefs (Religiosity), other attitudes (Social Dominance Orientation and Right-Wing Authoritarianism), as well as prior exposure to homosexuals (Contact). These variables were examined in a series of statistical analyses in the prediction of Homonegativity (anti-gay attitudes). I anticipated that Contact would serve as a mediator of relationships between the remaining predictors and anti-gay attitudes. As predicted, Contact did partially mediate the relationship between two of the antecedent variables (Openness and Religiosity) and attitudes toward homosexuality. These results help answer questions like whether people who are high in Openness are low in anti-gay attitudes (a) simply because they are open or (b) because their Openness drives them to interact with homosexuals.