Fear and cultural background drive sexual orientation prejudice in France (original) (raw)
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Fear and cultural background drive sexual prejudice in France – a sentiment analysis approach
Open Psychology
Sexual prejudice and its negative consequences remain major issues in Western societies, and numerous studies have tried to pinpoint its sociocultural underpinnings. However, most research has operationalized sexual prejudice via self-report measures or via implicit association tests (IATs), although it surfaces in language use and can be traced in spontaneous speech. Here, we report results from an experimental study investigating sexual prejudice in a corpus of spontaneous speech samples. Specifically, we tested in a context-sensitive sentiment analysis approach which attitudes (negative vs. positive) and emotions (joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust) were voiced by the participants in response to picture prompts displaying homosexual couples. We also considered the sociocultural basis of prejudicial attitudes, in particular the effects of the participants’ cultural background (France vs. Maghreb), age and gender. We find strong effects of cultural background and gender both on the...
Quality & Quantity, 2021
Discrimination against LGBT people represents a significant and long-standing societal problem that occurs in several forms, including lexical discrimination, which consists in frequent usage of discriminatory epithets. Lexical discrimination produces a vicious circle where speakers grow subconsciously accustomed to abusive language and marginalisation becomes institutionalised. A vast literature has tackled lexical discrimination, providing several country-level studies. The cases of France and Italy are described as very different: while the French experience is centred around grassroot mobilisation, Italy features a traditional strategy of silence. This work aims to verify such difference empirically. Using a rich and detailed dataset, we apply time series analysis on the frequencies of usage of the terms that characterise male homosexuality. Our results highlight some similarities and some differences between the French and the Italian case, stressing the importance of lexical r...
Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 2016
In the present article we analyze the polymorphous prejudice against Lesbians and Gays using a sample of Portuguese heterosexual individuals. We tested the differential importance of demographic, ideological, and psychological-level variables predicting this phenomenon. Results show that male Catholic right-wing respondents with less LG friends are the ones exhibiting higher polymorphous prejudice. Nevertheless, the introduction of psychologicallevel variables in the regression models increased the explained variance of polymorphous prejudice, above and beyond the remaining predictors. Also, different patterns of results are obtained when regression analyses are deployed at the level of the sub-scales of polymorphous prejudice. Results are discussed within the light of contemporary sexual prejudice frameworks, and the utility of results to intervention with discriminated LG individuals is reviewed.
Sexual Prejudice in the Portuguese Political Context
The Social Sciences, 2021
Sexual prejudice is a negative attitude toward an individual due to their belonging to a group defined by sexual minority behaviors, attractions, or orientations. As no studies assessing sexual prejudice levels among self-identified politicians have been conducted in Portugal, this study was carried out to address this gap in the literature. In addition, we sought to compare differences in levels of sexual prejudice by gender, religiosity, and political orientation. The sample consisted of 302 self-identified active politicians in Portugal, of whom 157 were men (52%) and 145 were women (48%), with an average age of 45.98 years. Study measurement instruments included a sociodemographic questionnaire and the Sexual Prejudice Scale in the Portuguese Political Context. Participants responded to this study’s outreach online, and they received emails that referred them directly to the online survey. The principal results show that, despite moderate overall levels of sexual prejudice among...
Social norms and prejudice against homosexuals
The Spanish journal of psychology, 2009
Different studies regarding the role of norms on the expression of prejudice have shown that the anti-prejudice norm influences people to inhibit prejudice expressions. However, if norm pressure has led to a substantial decrease in the public expression of prejudice against certain targets (e.g., blacks, women, blind people), little theoretical and empirical attention has been paid to the role of this general norm regarding sexual minorities (e.g., prostitutes, lesbians and gays). In this sense, the issue we want to address is whether general anti-prejudice norms can reduce the expression of prejudice against homosexual individuals. In this research we investigate the effect of activating an anti-prejudice norm against homosexuals on blatant and subtle expressions of prejudice. The anti-prejudice norm was experimentally manipulated and its effects were observed on rejection to intimacy (blatant prejudice) and on positive-negative emotions (subtle prejudice) regarding homosexuals. 13...
Studies of North Americans suggest that laypeople can judge the sexual orientation of others with greater than chance accuracy based on brief observations of their behavior (i.e.,''gaydar''exists). One factor that appears to contribute to these judgments is targets' degree of masculinity-femininity. However, behaviors related to sexual orientation and to masculinity-femininity might vary across cultures. Thus, cross-cultural work is needed to test whether judgments of sexual orientation are more accurate when targets and raters are from the same culture. American and Czech male targets, 38 homosexual and 41 heterosexual, were videotaped and brief segments of the videotapes were presented to American and Czech raters. Overall, raters' judgments of targets' sexual orientation were related to targets' self-reported sexual orientation. However, the relationship was stronger when targets were judged by raters from their own country. In general, results suggest that there are both crosscultural similarities and differences in gaydar and in cues related to sexual orientation.
Where’s the sex in sexual prejudice?
2006
This article reviews the history of the concept of anti-lesbian/gay prejudice and contemporary findings in the field. It is argued that since the 1970s psychologists have become less likely to research heterosexuals’ sexual practices as evidence of prejudice and more likely to research gay and bisexual men’s sexual practices as evidence of internalized prejudice. Concurrently, support for sexual orientation based equality has grown such that contemporary heterosexist prejudice is ambivalent and involves both support for equality and lingering dislike of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. It is argued that the zoning of public space for displays of heterosexuality and the concurrent stigmatization of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals in terms of their sexual practices represent one means of enacting heterosexism while expressing support for sexual orientation based equality.
Categories, stereotypes, and the linguistic perception of sexuality
Language in Society, 2014
This article examines how social stereotypes influence listeners' perceptions of indexical language. Building on recent developments in linguistics and social psychology, I investigate the extent to which stereotypical attitudes and beliefs about categories of speakers serve to enable the association of linguistic features with particular social meanings while simultaneously blocking others. My arguments are based on an analysis of listener perceptions of the intersecting categories of gender, sexuality, and social class among men in the UK. Using a modified matched-guise paradigm to test three category-relevant variables (mean pitch, spectral characteristics of /s/, and TH-fronting), I demonstrate how the perception of social meaning is governed by a combination of both attitudinal and cognitive factors. This finding is important because it illustrates the listener-dependent nature of sociolinguistic perception. Moreover, it also provides further empirical support for an understanding of social meaning as an emergent property of language-in-use. (speech perception, attitudes and stereotypes, sexuality, phonetic variation)*
In this essay, I examine the pragmatic and social semiotic aspects of recent hate speech against French politicians and homosexuals. In part one I analyse the discourse surrounding the 2002 stabbing of Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë in which his assailant Azedine Berkane expressed dislike for 'politicians and homosexuals' . The French media and authorities generally did not frame this as a 'homophobic act' and ignored any potentially logical association between the two terms (i.e. 'politicians' and 'homosexuals'). In order to better understand his statement, I examine Berkane's act in relation to what other spectators and participants said about it both immediately following the event and sometime after its occurrence. In part two of the essay, I link Berkane's homophobic statement to a broader French semiotic system and set of textual practices including several examples of hate speech that occurred during an attack on Bègles mayor Noël Mamère. I analyse representative examples of hate speech received by Mamère when he performed the first and only gay marriage in France in 2004. By examining examples of hate speech from the 'Mamère Affair' , it is possible to gain a better understanding of the ideological underpinnings of Berkane's seemingly illogical statement in the 'Delanoë Affair' .
Cultural Stereotypes and Personal Beliefs: Perceptions of Heterosexual Men, Women, and People
The present research prioritizes minority groups' perspectives, specifically in the context of lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and transgender (LGBQT) and heterosexual dynamics. Study 1 elucidates LGB people's knowledge of stereotypes about heterosexuals, whereas Study 2 examines the extent to which LGBQT people believe in stereotypes about heterosexuals. In Study 1, we asked a large sample of LGB-identified participants to describe cultural stereotypes that exist about heterosexual men, women, or people (gender unspecified) and analyzed the data in terms of frequency and thematic content. Results indicated that cultural stereotypes about heterosexual targets are gendered (e.g., macho and aggressive; hyper-feminine and submissive) and negative in content (e.g., closed-minded and judgmental). In Study 2, we measured LGBQT participants' personal endorsement of cultural stereotypes about heterosexual target groups (generated by participants in Study 1). The results of Study 2 demonstrated that LGBQT participants' beliefs about heterosexual men and people overlap, whereas participants tend to perceive heterosexual women in a favorable light. Taken together, these 2 studies offer new insight into intergroup relations between sexual minorities and heterosexuals by evaluating the cultural stereotypes and personal beliefs held by LGBQT people.