Abstract
In a clever move to explain the political divide over same-sex marriage, Pinsof and Haselton (2016) demonstrated that adopting a short-term mating strategy and endorsing stereotypes of sexual minorities as promiscuous (and therefore threatening to monogamous lifestyles) work in tandem to produce opposition to same-sex marriage. Although Pinsof and Haselton did not demonstrate that mating strategies and stereotype endorsement statistically mediate (or explain) the tendency for conservatives to oppose same-sex marriage more than liberals, they included political orientation as a covariate and suggested that conservatives are more likely than liberals to pursue short-term mating strategies and to endorse stereotypes of gay people as promiscuous.
Pinsof and Haselton couched their findings in terms of Weeden and Kurzban’s (2014) evolutionary-psychology approach, which emphasizes the role of self-interest in political ideology. Thus, they argued that heterosexuals who are eager to marry and start families early on would be threatened by the lifestyles they believe sexual minorities lead. Although it is not entirely clear why, from the standpoint of self-interest, heterosexuals’ relationships would be jeopardized by the choices made by same-sex couples (assuming that, in general, they are trading in different sexual marketplaces), this perspective has led to some interesting empirical observations.
An important issue that was neglected by Pinsof and Haselton pertains to the political divide within the group of sexual minorities. Although most sexual minorities support same-sex marriage at this point, it is reasonable to expect variability in opinion. Previous research on aspects of system-justification theory has revealed that gays and lesbians who are relatively more conservative—much like heterosexuals who are conservative—hold less favorable attitudes about sexual minorities (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004) and are less enthusiastic about their participation in family life (Pacilli, Taurino, Jost, & van der Toorn, 2011). This finding is consistent with the notion that conservative attitudes reflect a defensive motivation to justify the societal status quo (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003); therefore, conservative attitudes may be congruent with self-interest for people who are advantaged by the status quo but incongruent with self-interest for those who are disadvantaged by it (Jost, Burgess, & Mosso, 2001).
Because conservative sexual minorities (compared with liberal sexual minorities) exhibit greater out-group favoritism, sexual self-stigmatization, and opposition to same-sex parenting (e.g., Jost et al., 2004; Pacilli et al., 2011), we hypothesized that sexual minorities who are more conservative are more likely to stereotype sexual minorities as promiscuous and to oppose same-sex marriage. In this case, conservative ideology would have precisely the same attitudinal consequences as it does for heterosexual people, but it would conflict with objective self-interest, given that individuals with same-sex attractions would be deprived of legal acceptance of these relationships.
Pinsof and Haselton reported results from their full sample, which included 8.4% sexual minorities, and noted that their results were the same when sexual minorities were excluded. They did not discuss results for the subsample of sexual minorities, although (a) the topic of internalized heterosexism on the part of sexual minorities has been identified as an important, understudied topic (Herek & McLemore, 2013), and (b) the results for this group might be especially useful for understanding ideological deviations from self-interest (cf. Weeden & Kurzban, 2014).
Reanalysis of Pinsof and Haselton’s Data Set
We accessed Pinsof and Haselton’s data set through the Open Science Framework (for methodological details, see the Supplemental Material available online) and conducted analyses on the subsample of sexual minorities—those self-identifying as homosexual (n = 21), mostly homosexual (n = 9), or bisexual (n = 61). In line with system-justification theory, our hypothesis was that sexual minorities who identified as more politically conservative would be more likely to (a) endorse implicit and explicit stereotypes of gays and lesbians as more promiscuous than heterosexuals and (b) oppose same-sex marriage. We also hypothesized that greater endorsement of stereotypes associating homosexuality with promiscuity would be associated with weaker support for same-sex marriage.
In results consistent with prior research on the internalization of stereotypes among members of disadvantaged groups (e.g., Jost et al., 2004), the Implicit Association Test (IAT) revealed that sexual minorities associated homosexuality with promiscuity at an implicit level of awareness (IAT d score = 0.41, 95% confidence interval, or CI = [0.31, 0.51]), t(90) = 8.34, p < .001, d = 0.87. However, they rejected this stereotype at an explicit level (M = 2.76, 95% CI = [2.47, 3.04]); the average rating was significantly different from scale’s midpoint, t(90) = −7.84, p < .001, d = −0.82. As hypothesized, conservatism was associated with the tendency to stereotype gays and lesbians as promiscuous at an implicit level, r(91) = .22, 95% CI = [.05, .38], p = .033. With respect to explicit stereotypes, the pattern was similar but not statistically significant, r(91) = .18, 95% CI = [−.04, .40], p = .092 (see Table 1).
Means, Standard Deviations, and Bivariate Correlations for the Sexual Minorities in Pinsof and Haselton’s Sample
Note: N = 91. IAT = Implicit Association Test.
p = .092. *p < .05. **p < .01.
Sexual minorities who were more conservative, r(91) = .30, 95% CI = [.05, .54], p = .004, and who endorsed the homosexuality-promiscuity stereotype both implicitly, r(91) = .24, 95% CI = [−.04, .44], p = .024, and explicitly, r(91) = .28, 95% CI = [.02, .51], p = .007, were less supportive of same-sex marriage, compared with those who were more liberal and who rejected the stereotype. The results, in other words, mirrored those obtained for the predominantly heterosexual sample analyzed by Pinsof and Haselton. Because this subsample was quite small, however, we sought to provide stronger evidence that conservatism would be associated with opposition to same-sex marriage in two additional samples of sexual minorities (for methodological details, see the Supplemental Material).
Analyses of Additional Data Sets
We analyzed data for 213 sexual-minority respondents (115 gays and lesbians and 98 bisexuals) who participated in the 2012 wave of the American National Election Study (2014) and reported their political orientation (0 = left, 10 = right) and attitudes about same-sex marriage (1 = support gay marriage, 3 = oppose any legal recognition). As hypothesized, a more rightist orientation was associated with opposition to same-sex marriage, r(213) = .24, 95% CI = [.10, .37], p < .001.
We also inspected the relationship between political orientation (1 = very liberal, 6 = very conservative) and attitudes toward same-sex marriage in a very large (N = 3,924), ethnically diverse sample of sexual minorities included in the 2010 Social Justice Sexuality Project (Battle, Pastrana, & Daniels, 2012). As hypothesized, sexual minorities who opposed same-sex marriage (M = 2.77) were significantly less liberal than those who supported it (M = 2.11), t(117.86) = 4.23, p < .001, mean difference = 0.65, 95% CI = [0.36, 0.94], d = 0.52.
Discussion
Building on Pinsof and Haselton’s important work, we demonstrated that stereotypes associating promiscuity with homosexuality are relevant for understanding not only the attitudes of heterosexuals but also those of sexual minorities. Sexual minorities exhibited an implicit association between promiscuity and gay and lesbian people, which is consistent with past findings of implicit out-group favoritism among people who are disadvantaged by the social system (Jost et al., 2004). Political conservatism was associated (a) with implicit and explicit endorsement of the stereotype that gay people are more promiscuous than heterosexuals and (b) with opposition to same-sex marriage. Endorsement of the promiscuity stereotype was also associated with opposition to same-sex marriage, which is consistent with the notion that stereotypes serve a system-justifying function (Jost & Banaji, 1994).
In analyses of two additional data sets, including the nationally representative American National Election Study (2014) and a large survey of sexual minorities, we observed that sexual minorities who were more politically conservative were also less supportive of same-sex marriage. Taken in conjunction, these findings provide clear evidence that conservative ideology is associated with a preference for tradition (vs. social change) and acceptance (vs. rejection) of inequality, even when the implementation of these values may limit the rights and freedoms of one’s own social group (Jost et al., 2003, 2004).
Future research would do well to investigate these phenomena in other societies, including those that are more or less tolerant of homosexuality compared with the United States. It would also be useful to analyze specific facets of conservative ideology, such as resistance to change and acceptance of inequality (e.g., van der Toorn, Jost, Packer, Noorbaloochi, & Van Bavel, 2017), and to leverage experimental methods designed to increase or decrease system-justification motivation and observe the consequences for attitudes about sexual minorities (Jost, Gaucher, & Stern, 2015).
Evolutionary psychology may be especially useful for understanding why members of advantaged groups often hold attitudes that are supportive of the status quo, a position that is congruent with self-interest. It seems less clear how the specific formulation of evolutionary theory favored by Weeden and Kurzban (2014) and Pinsof and Haselton (2016), which relies so heavily on assumptions of self-interest, could shed similar light on the appeal of conservative ideology for groups that are disadvantaged by the status quo. Cases of out-group favoritism are tricky to explain on the basis of rational self-interest alone (Jost & Banaji, 1994).
To be clear, our point is not that sexual minorities are bereft of self-interest motivation. Rather, the nature of the relationship between conservatism and opposition to same-sex marriage is the same among heterosexuals and sexual minorities, even though the logic of self-interest does not make sense for sexual minorities. Thus, it may be that ideology provides a better explanation than self-interest when it comes to understanding their effect (see also Jost et al., in press).
Finally, the results we have obtained suggest that system-justification theory, which considers a wide range of psychological motives and ideological manifestations, including some that contradict self-interest, may be useful for understanding why some people who might benefit from the institution of same-sex marriage nonetheless refrain from endorsing it.
Footnotes
Action Editor
D. Stephen Lindsay served as action editor for this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
