Therefore the issue of the homophobia-as-repression hypothesis are highlighted: only if few homophobes tend to be meaningful homosexual, subsequently homosexuality cannot describe a lot; if many homophobes are homosexual, subsequently homophobia can be useless at convincing rest one is directly.
As such, it will arrive as little shock that some present research discovers no proof because of this homophobia-as-repressed-homosexuality hypothesis. MacInnis & Hodson (2013) looked for to examine whether any connect is present between a measure of implicit intimate appeal and direct homophobia in heterosexuals. In order to do this, the authors utilized an implicit connection job (IAT) modified to sexual interest: a job which members have to classify photos as male/female and keywords as intimately attractive/unattractive, as well as the increase of which they do very should let you know some thing concerning cognitive organization between your two. I’m cautious with the interpretations of IATs for several explanations, but I’ll assume for the moment that these types of a test does without a doubt kind of measure what they expect. Participants were furthermore asked about their own direct intimate destinations to men and women, and their attitudes towards gay/lesbian and heterosexual populations. In total, their unique sample symbolized 237 Canadian undergraduates (85 guys).
When I would expect, the IAT effects just correlated reasonably with specific measures of intimate appeal (r = .37 for men, roentgen = .15 for females). The correlations between those IAT strategies and unfavorable, explicit evaluations of homosexuals for males ended up being r = -.06, and for ladies, roentgen = -.24. In other words, not simply happened to be these types of correlations quite little, nonetheless nominally went when you look at the other path of repression levels: as people showed much more implicit attraction with the exact same gender, additionally they revealed much less specific negativity. On the same note, men’s specific tourist attractions to your exact same sex negatively correlated and their homophobia aswell (roentgen = -.31), for example as boys reported a lot more conscious attraction some other guys, they were furthermore much more good towards homosexuals. Everyone tend to be good towards those who look like them—for great reason—so this is simply not awfully shocking.
The researchers tried further analyses and to address additional interpretations from the repression-to-attraction profile.
Initial, they broken down the data such that those that confirmed positive homosexual implicit attraction are versus people who from the bad part. A man test, it is worth noting, couldn’t be examined right here as merely 4 in the 85 males got these types of a rating (probably absolutely not a lot implicit interest floating around?); for ladies, the exact same receiving as before appeared: those showing considerably implicit appeal had been much less negative towards homosexuals. Upcoming, the writers tried to analyze only those in upper-half of homophobia score, right after which those in the greater extreme ends. But the implicit attraction scores decided not to differ between those large and lower in prejudice for males or girls. The repression theory was not actually supported whenever authors tried to separate those members whose specific and implicit attraction scores are maximally distinctive from each other (the authors frame this as individuals overstating their unique heterosexuality on an explicit amount, but I suspect the presentation is the fact that IAT actually too big of a device).
From the dividing of these sample, MacInnis & Hodson (2013) gave their own facts every possible benefit to find something—even some spurious relationship—but in essence absolutely nothing emerged. They smashed the info down by both women and men; thinking towards gays, lesbians, and homosexuals generally speaking; those large or low in prejudice; those whose Web dating review implicit and specific tourist attractions diverged. Regardless of what it absolutely was cut, help was not discover the repression tip. When affairs did exist between implicit interest and direct perceptions, they typically ran during the face-to-face movement for the repression theory: those who demonstrated implicit attraction are much less unfavorable toward homosexuals (albeit rather reasonably). I do not believe this may quit individuals who want the repression theory to abandon it—likely simply because they benefits they for causes beyond their demonstrated truth-value, that will be at this time dubious at best—but its a possible place to begin for this journey.
MacInnis, C. & Hodson, G. (2013). Was homophobia related to an implicit same-sex destination? Log of Sex Research, 50, 777-785.