Heterosexuals Do It with Feeling: Heterocentrism in Heterosexual College Students' Perceptions of Female Bisexuality and Heterosexuality

Abstract

How people define sexual orientation may have important implications for understanding hostility toward sexual outgroups. This study used an ethnocentrism framework to predict how college students would define ‘heterosexuality’ and ‘bisexuality’ and under what conditions they would apply these labels to a woman. One hundred and eighty-nine heterosexual participants (125 female, 64 male) were asked to define either ‘heterosexuality’ or ‘bisexuality.’ As predicted, affective feelings and physical behaviors defined ‘heterosexuality’ whereas ‘bisexuality’ was defined solely by physical behavior. Participants also read a list of behaviors or emotions a woman had performed with or felt toward either a same-sex or cross-sex individual and indicated whether each of the items would indicate that the woman was bisexual or heterosexual, respectively. The authors confirmed that it took more extreme sexual behavior to label a woman ‘bisexual’ than it did to label her ‘heterosexual.’

KEYWORDS:

• bisexuality
• biphobia
• heterosexuality
• heterocentrism
• ingroups
• outgroups

Additional information

Notes on contributors

D. Joye Swan

Joye Swan is professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology and Social Sciences at Woodbury University. Her research has focused almost exclusively on sexual risk-taking, intimate relationships, and issues related to sexual minorities, although she also authored ground-breaking ethical research on induced compliance in the informed consent process.

Shani Habibi

Dr. Shani Habibi received a B.S. from Woodbury University, an M.A. in Psychology from Pepperdine University, and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Multicultural Communications from the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University. Dr. Habibi.s main research interests are in the areas of cultural differences with a focus on gender. She is trained as a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist as well as a Systemic Therapist and has treated clients in a variety of clinical settings, mainly in a community mental health clinic and at an inpatient psychiatric hospital.