On Communicating Pride, Crying in Movies, and Recruiting Innocent Bystanders: The Effect of Sex on Communication Schemas Activated with Gay and Heterosexual Targets

Abstract

Invoking social identity theory as an interpretive frame, a previous content analysis of heterosexuals' representations of imagined conversations with gay men revealed a number of communication schemas for talk with the latter (e.g., homonegativity and offense avoidance). This study explores the role of participant sex in determining the prevalence of such schemas, comparatively incorporating representations of conversations with a heterosexual target. Two hundred American undergraduates imagined a conversation with a gay or heterosexual male target. Male participants' imagined conversations with a gay target were rated more negative, indicated less evidence of relational development, and included more gay stereotyping than did females' imagined dialogues.

Keywords:

• Gay
• Communication
• Schema
• Stereotype
• Heterosexual
• Sex
• Gender
• Intergroup
• Social Identity Theory

The authors wish to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their assistance, and would like to extend gratitude to Jake Harwood for his invaluable insights and aid with earlier versions of this article.

Notes

Note: Values are cell means unless otherwise indicated.

∗p < .008 (with Bonferroni adjustment).

^† p < .001.

Participants also provided narrative assessments of their imagined conversations, as did individuals in Harwood's (1998) sample. Findings were nearly identical to those produced from the dialogues. See Hajek and Giles (2005) for narrative assessment results.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christopher Hajek

Christopher Hajek (PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2003) is in the

Howard Giles

Howard Giles (PhD, DSc, University of Bristol, 1971 & 1996) is in the