Marry who you love: Intergroup contact with gay people and another stigmatized minority is related to voting on the restriction of gay rights through threat

Zingora, Tibor; Graf, Sylvie (2019). Marry who you love: Intergroup contact with gay people and another stigmatized minority is related to voting on the restriction of gay rights through threat. Journal of applied social psychology, 49(11), pp. 684-703. Wiley 10.1111/jasp.12627

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The study examined factors associated with discrimination against gay people in a public referendum aimed at the restriction of gay rights. We tested whether positive and negative intergroup contact with gay people and intergroup contact with another stigmatized minority, the Roma, were associated with how the heterosexual majority voted in the referendum (i.e., discrimination). We tested two mechanisms underlying the link between intergroup contact and discrimination—the mediation by intergroup threat and the mediation by outgroup attitudes. We found that negative contact with both gay people and the Roma was associated with a higher probability of gay discrimination while positive contact was associated with a lower probability of gay discrimination. Intergroup threat, not intergroup attitudes, mediated the link between intergroup contact and discrimination. In the case of contact with gay people,
intergroup contact was linked to discrimination through threat from gay people.
In the case of contact with Roma, intergroup contact was linked to discrimination through the generalization of threats from the Roma to gay people but not via the generalization of outgroup attitudes. Our research brings novel evidence that contact with one minority can affect discrimination against another minority in both positive and negative way and that perceived threat, but not attitudes, plays a key role in majority's decision to discriminate against gay people.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology
07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology > Social Neuroscience and Social Psychology

UniBE Contributor:

Graf, Sylvie

Subjects:

100 Philosophy
100 Philosophy > 150 Psychology
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology

ISSN:

0021-9029

Publisher:

Wiley

Language:

English

Submitter:

Andrea Gassmann-Suter

Date Deposited:

27 Feb 2020 13:31

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:37

Publisher DOI:

10.1111/jasp.12627

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.141097

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/141097

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