Relations among Gender, Religiosity, Personality Traits in homophobia

Abstract

Background: Recognizing the multifactorial discrimination towards gays and lesbians, Hudson and Rickett (1980) proposed a distinction between homo-negativity, conceptualized as the set of behaviors and negative patterns towards the homosexual community, and homophobia thought as an emotional response to anxiety and discomfort. Aims: The main objective of this research was to investigate psychological characteristics of southern young and older adults, divided in two groups, and with different religious convictions and behaviors in relation to the different presence of homophobic attitudes and behavior. Methods: 300 subjects, were recruited with reference to the gender (52% F, 48% M), selected among students and teachers of a high school in the Calabrian region. It was administered a socio-cultural questionnaire to collect general information. In order to evaluate personality traits, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised–Short Form Italian version was administered. The Modern Homophobia Scale (Morrison and Morrison, 2002) was administered to evaluate the homophobic behavior, analyzing gayphobia and lesbophobia separately. Results: The study revealed significant differences in the tendency to assume homophobic behaviors related to the two different generational bands. Adults showed greater tendencies to take homophobic behaviors, both for gays and lesbians, in comparison with the generation of young adults. Moreover, it was analyzed the discomfort that could emerge in the relation with gays and lesbians, believing that homosexuality is a deviant behavior and the support to institutions which discriminate against homosexuality. Discussion: Older adults had greater homophobia traits than young people living in the same southern territory. This result is important from the application point of view because it shows that the continuous, attempts at intervention and campaigns on homophobic behavior are leading important results and this should stimulate to always and deeply promote it on the basis of correlational studies presented by scientific community.