In this study, the authors investigated whether psychotherapist bias related to client bisexuality is most likely to occur with respect to judgments about stereotype-relevant clinical issues. Participants were 108 psychotherapists who read a fictitious intake report about a male client who was portrayed as heterosexual, gay, or bisexual. Client sexual orientation was behaviorally operationalized through reference to the sex of the client's present and previous romantic partners. Participants rated the case for the salience of a variety of clinical issues (some of which were related to bisexual stereotypes), global psychological functioning, and anticipated reactions to the client. Client sexual orientation had no effect for outcomes unrelated to bisexual stereotypes. In contrast, clinical issues related to bisexual stereotypes were rated as most salient to the case when the client was portrayed as bisexual rather than when the client was portrayed as heterosexual or gay. This effect remained significant even when participants' self-reported ability to avoid bias, self-presentational concerns, and response set related to perceptions of psychopathology were controlled for. Exploratory analyses suggested that this effect was partially mediated by stereotypes of bisexual men as confused and conflicted.

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