Attitudes Toward Homosexuality Among College Students
Poster Number
23
Format
Poster Presentation
Abstract/Artist Statement
Discrimination against homosexuals is something that is all too common in today’s society. In our experiment, the effect of different information on students’ attitudes towards homosexuality was studied. The purpose was to find whether an individual’s perception of homosexual people is determined by their personal experiences with them. Thirty-five undergraduate students from the University of the Pacific participated in the study by reading one of three short stories and filling out a revised version of the Attitudes Toward Gay Men Scale, a 21-item questionnaire on their attitudes toward homosexuality. One story portrayed a homosexual teen that was harassed for his sexual orientation, another about a happy, well-adjusted homosexual teen and the last story being irrelevant. The means obtained for the three groups showed that those who read the sad story had the least accepting attitude towards homosexuality and those who read the happy story had the most accepting attitude towards homosexuality. The differences between these means were not statistically significant. Possible reasons for the non- significance were discussed by the group and it was decided that changes could be made for future research possibilities.
Location
Pacific Geosciences Center
Start Date
30-4-2005 1:00 PM
End Date
30-4-2005 3:00 PM
Attitudes Toward Homosexuality Among College Students
Pacific Geosciences Center
Discrimination against homosexuals is something that is all too common in today’s society. In our experiment, the effect of different information on students’ attitudes towards homosexuality was studied. The purpose was to find whether an individual’s perception of homosexual people is determined by their personal experiences with them. Thirty-five undergraduate students from the University of the Pacific participated in the study by reading one of three short stories and filling out a revised version of the Attitudes Toward Gay Men Scale, a 21-item questionnaire on their attitudes toward homosexuality. One story portrayed a homosexual teen that was harassed for his sexual orientation, another about a happy, well-adjusted homosexual teen and the last story being irrelevant. The means obtained for the three groups showed that those who read the sad story had the least accepting attitude towards homosexuality and those who read the happy story had the most accepting attitude towards homosexuality. The differences between these means were not statistically significant. Possible reasons for the non- significance were discussed by the group and it was decided that changes could be made for future research possibilities.