Attitudinal and Individual Differences Influence Perceptions of Mock Child Sexual Assault Cases Involving Gay Defendants

Abstract

Many people hold negative attitudes and stereotypes about gay men, including the stereotype that gay men are likely to be child molesters. This article explored the implications of this stereotype for judgments made in a hypothetical legal case involving child sexual abuse accusations against a male teacher by either a male or female victim. Mock jurors who held the most anti-gay attitudes and those who endorsed the stereotype of gay men as child molesters made the most pro-prosecution judgments in scenarios involving gay defendants. A new scale (the Stereotypes about Gays and Child Abuse scale) was developed to assess the extent to which participants endorsed the stereotype of gay men as being likely to sexually abuse children. This scale was a stronger predictor of case judgments than existing, more general scales measuring biases against homosexuality.

Keywords:

• homosexuality
• juror decision making
• child sexual abuse

Notes

1. For comparison, we also examined the relation between individual differences and case judgments in a case involving straight defendants. There is no theoretical reason to expect anti-gay attitudes to be related to case judgments in cases involving straight defendants (and they were not; all rs ≤ .20, ns)