Does what you believe about sexual orientation have anything to do with whom you might vote for? More than one might think, according to a study published in Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversityopens in new window.
A team of psychologists led by Patrick Grzanka and Katharine Zeiders, who have been studying the social and political implications of sexual orientation beliefs for several years, probed the relationship between these fundamental beliefs about sexuality and their associations with political attitudes. The connections between beliefs about sexual orientation and homophobia are well established in psychological research and are somewhat intuitive: The more one believes that gay people and straight people are fundamentally different from one another, the more homophobic one is likely to be. Less obvious, however, is how these beliefs might affect other areas of one’s outlook or political worldview.
With colleagues Elliot Spengler, Lindsay Till Hoyt, and Russell B. Toomey, they asked: Does what one believe about the nature of sexual orientation correspond with voting intentions and political affiliation? What about other seemingly unrelated attitudes, such as sexism, or the number of reported friendships with lesbian, gay, or bisexual people? Data for the study were collected immediately prior to the U.S. 2016 presidential election at two large university campuses in different regions of the United States.
Grzanka et al. found that believing sexuality is inborn and unchangeable did not significantly distinguish Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters among their sample 286 undergraduates. In other words, “born this way” beliefs were not a strong predictor of young voters’ political attitudes, suggesting that these young people largely believed that sexual orientation is natural and inflexible regardless of their politics. Other beliefs about sexuality, however, were much more illuminative of political differences among these emerging adults.
Using the Sexual Orientation Beliefs Scale (Arseneau, Grzanka, Miles, & Fassinger, 2013)opens in new window, the researchers found that respondents who had more essentialist beliefs about sexuality were much more likely to identify as Republican and to plan to vote for then-candidate Donald J. Trump.
For example, those highest in beliefs that people with the same sexual orientation are very similar (i.e., homogeneity), sexual orientation categories are mutually exclusive and distinct (i.e., discreteness), and sexual orientation identity tells a great deal about a person (i.e., informativeness) were most likely to identify as Republican (49.2% compared to 24.6% Democrats) and to support Trump (47.7% compared to 19.2% planning to vote for Hillary Clinton). Notably, though the group of respondents with the highest levels of “born this way” beliefs were mostly Democrats (63.5%) and planned to vote for Clinton (84.1%), these beliefs in the biological basis and fixity of sexual orientation did not, in isolation, distinguish Trump and Clinton voters.
The study made important connections between these beliefs and other domains of social life. For example, when accounting for the gender, race, and sexual orientation of the respondent, Grzanka and colleagues found that those highest in essentialist beliefs were more likely to exhibit both benevolent and hostile sexist attitudes toward women and to report fewer numbers of friends who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
“These findings really underscore that we need to look beyond ‘born this way’ rhetoric to better understand how complex beliefs about sexual orientation shape people’s worldviews,” said Grzanka. “Though political commonsense might suggest that believing sexuality is inborn would predict support for pro-LGBT candidates, our data suggest that the story is much more complicated.” Research and clinical training, according to Grzanka, should reflect this complexity so that psychological science can better inform education, training, and social policy that enhance and expand the civil rights and well-being of sexual minorities.
Note: This article is in the Social Psychology and Social Processes topic area. View more articles in the Social Psychology and Social Processes topic area.