Amnestic Heterosexism and Bystander Responses to Anti-Gay Bullying

ABSTRACT

Amnestic heterosexism (AH) reflects the belief that, in contemporary society, people who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) no longer experience discrimination related to sexual orientation. We investigated potential associations between individuals’ AH beliefs and their responses to anti-gay bullying. Heterosexual undergraduates (N = 238) completed a measure of AH before responding to a scenario in which a man accuses another man of being a “fag.” As expected, those with greater AH beliefs perceived the situation as less severe/dangerous, felt less personally responsible to intervene, and were more blaming toward the target of bullying. In multivariate analyses, AH was indirectly associated with intent to confront the perpetrator via a path of reduced personal responsibility. Our results indicate that beliefs denying the existence of discrimination based on sexual orientation reduce feelings of personal responsibility to address anti-gay bullying. In turn, low personal responsibility inhibits confrontation of those who perpetrate bullying behaviors.

KEYWORDS:

• Amnestic heterosexism
• bullying
• bystander
• discrimination
• heterosexism
• homophobia
• upstander

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge Miranda McKinney and Marisa Motisi for their assistance with data coding and management.