ASSESSING THE STRUCTURE OF PREJUDICIAL ATTITUDES - THE CASE OF ATTITUDES TOWARD HOMOSEXUALS

Two studies assessed the structure of attitudes toward homosexuals. In Study 1. Ss completed measures of stereotypes, symbolic beliefs, and affective associates as well as attitudes toward homosexuals. They als o completed the right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) scale. The results r evealed that (a) stereotypes did not provide a complete representation of attitudes, (b) RWA was negatively correlated with attitudes toward homosexuals, (c) the relative importance of the predictor variables d iffered for high and low RWAs, and (d) the three predictors accounted for more variance in the attitudes of low RWAs than of high RWAs. Stud y 2 also included measures of past experiences and perceived value dis similarity. Results revealed that past experiences significantly added to the prediction of attitudes only for high RWAs and that much of th e RWA-attitude relation was accounted for by the consideration of symb olic beliefs and perceived value dissimilarity.