German adolescents’ homonegativity and the relationship to their religious denomination and gender role orientation

Abstract

Although same-sex marriages are legally recognized in many Western societies, prejudices against gay men and lesbians remain and already appear in adolescents. Since a negative attitude toward gay men and lesbians is likely to foster malevolent behaviors, we investigated predictors of homonegativity in adolescents aged between 14 and 16 years. Regression analyses revealed that Muslim religious denomination – but not another or no religious denomination – and traditional gender roles substantially explained variance in homonegativity, followed by contact with gay and lesbians friends, religiosity, and gender. Migration background, socioeconomic status, and contact with homosexual family members were not found to be predictors of homonegativity. Implications of these findings are discussed, in particular, the importance of cautiously interpreting these correlational data that do not allow for a straightforward causal interpretation.

Keywords:

• Homonegativity
• sexual orientation
• prejudice
• religious denomination
• traditional gender orientation

Acknowledgments

We thank all participants in this study. We also thank Markus Chmielorz, Marta Grabski, and Andrea Westhoff (Rosa Strippe e.V. Bochum) and Raphaela Wehlig for discussions and assistance in collecting the data.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Norbert Zmyj

Norbert Zmyj, Dr. rer. nat, is Professor of Development Psychology at TU Dortmund University. His main research interest is children's social-cognitive development. One line of this research concerns children's development of the in-group-out-group bias. As part of this line of research, he investigates adolescents' stereotypes including homonegativity.

Lilo Huber-Bach

Lilo Huber-Bach, M. Sc. Psychology, studied Psychology at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf. She is a psychotherapist-in-training with a focus on personality disorders and works at an open psychiatric hospital in Wanne-Eickel.