Attitudes Toward Adoption by Same-Sex Couples: Effects of Gender of the Participant, Sexual Orientation of the Couple, and Gender of the Child

ABSTRACT

The present study aims to characterize attitudes toward adoption by same-sex couples in a sample of Portuguese university students. Using a quasi-experimental design, participants (N = 500) were presented a vignette describing a couple adopting a child, manipulating couple sexual orientation and child gender. After reading the vignette, participants rated three different aspects of parental competence of the prospective parents (stability, abuse, and parental aptitude) and four different aspects of the future development of the adopted child (psychosocial adjustment, victimization, psychological disturbance, and normative sexuality). MANOVAs and follow-up ANOVAs were conducted in order to analyze the data. Participants expressed a heteronormative view of parenting, rating better the parental competence and child development of heterosexual, than of lesbian and gay parented families; however, they did not identify differences between lesbian and gay couples. Men expressed more negative attitudes than their female counterparts. Both men and women considered that a boy adopted by a gay couple would be less likely to have a normative sexuality than a girl in the same circumstances. By disentangling the effects of sexual orientation of prospective parents, gender of the adopted child, and gender of the participant, results of this study clearly contribute to a deeper understanding of attitudes toward lesbian and gay parent families. The role of gender is evident and its effect is explained taking into account sociological and psychological literature that connects gender, attitudes toward homo- sexuality, and adherence to hegemonic masculinity.

keywords:

• same-sex parenting
• lesbians and gay men
• adoption
• attitudes
• gender

Authors’ note

The authors would like to thank FCT, Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, under the project PEst-OE/PSI/UI0050/2014.

Notes

¹ Although we acknowledge the importance of families formed by bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals, research has disproportionately focused on lesbian and gay families/samesex couples. In this study we use this terminology to reflect the samples used in existing literature.

² The EU LGBT Survey was conducted online in the 27 EU States and Croatia between April and July 2012. Although data are not representative, the survey collected information from 93,079 persons aged 18 years or over who identified as G, L, B, or T.

³ The stability of the factorial structure of the instruments was established through confirmatory factor analysis, using the AMOS software (v. 19, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL). The overall fit of the hypothesized models was evaluated using the following set of indices and respective values for an acceptable fit (Kline, 2011; Schweizer, 2010): χ²/gl <5 (Arbuckle, 2008); Bentler Comparative Fit Index—CFI > 0.90 (Bentler, 1990); Root Mean Square Error of Approximation—RMSEA <0.08 (Arbuckle, 2008); and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual—SRMR <0.08 (Hu & Bentler, 1999 in Kline, 2011).