A multilevel analysis of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) rights support across 77 countries: The role of contact and country laws

Abstract

Although intergroup contact reduces prejudice generally, there are growing calls to examine contextual factors in conjunction with contact. Such an approach benefits from more sophisticated analytic approaches, such as multilevel modelling, that take both the individual (Level-1) and their environment (Level-2) into account. Using this approach, we go beyond attitudes to assess both individual and contextual predictors of support for gay/ lesbian and transgender rights. Using a sample of participants across 77 countries, results revealed that personal gay/lesbian contact (Level-1) and living in a country with more gay/ lesbian rights (Level-2) predicted greater support for gay/lesbian rights (n = 71,991). Likewise, transgender contact and living in a country with more transgender rights predicted more support for transgender rights (n = 70,056). Cross-level interactions are also presented and discussed. Overall, findings highlight the importance of both individual and contextual factors in predicting support for LGBT communities.Considerable research suggests that personal contact with an outgroup reduces prejudice towards that group (e.g., Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). However, there are growing calls to examine the role of contextual factors, such as the laws in one's country, in conjunction with contact effects (e.g., Hodson, Costello, & MacInnis, 2013;Pettigrew, 2008) to predict outgroup attitudes. This may be particularly important in the context of LGBT contact, as there remains considerable cross-national variability in legislative support for LGBT communities; that is, some countries have adopted pro-LGBT policies more readily than others. Despite an overall global increase in LGBT rights and greater acceptance of LGBT people among individuals (e.g.

Perceptions of intolerant norms both facilitate and inhibit collective action among sexual minorities

“…We took perceived social norms as our analytic starting point. Research that investigates differences in collective action across (national, political, or social) contexts is likely to benefit from conceptualizing social norms as an exogenous contextual variable that moderates relationships between key variables and collective action (similar to research assessing the effect of laws on collective action; Earle et al, 2020 ; Górska et al, 2017 ). In this case, we believe that measures of actual social norms—instead of perceived social norms—might more accurately reflect the contextual nature of norms.…”

Advancing research into the social psychology of sexual orientations and gender identities: Current research and future directions

“…However, the growing volume of research is not limited to recent societal events, and instead is part of a larger trend in which LGBTQ+ related research has become more visible in several areas of social psychology, including: social cognition (Carnaghi et al., 2021); antecedents and consequences of homonegativity (Bettinsoli et al., 2020) and internalized sexual stigma (Salvati, Pellegrini, et al., 2021b); minority stress model (Meyer & Frost, 2013); self‐concept and identity processes such as coming out (Mitha et al., 2021; Hinton et al., 2021); stereotypes and gender roles (Petsko & Bodenhausen, 2019; Salvati, Passarelli, et al., 2021; Valsecchi et al., 2020); objectification, and dehumanization processes (Breslow et al., 2020; Di Battista et al., 2020; Engeln‐Maddox et al., 2011; Szymanski et al., 2019); social change and collective action to promote LGBTQ+ rights and gender equality (Chan & Mak, 2020; Earle et al., 2021); interpersonal and intergroup relationships (LaCosse & Plant, 2019; Paterson et al., 2019); same‐sex couples and parenting (Costa et al., 2019; Rosenthal et al., 2019); sexual relationships and use of dating apps (Anderson et al., 2018; Cao & Smith, 2021; Guschlbauer et al., 2019; Hinton et al., 2019); intersectionality including multiple minority status (Anderson & Koc, 2020; Koc & Vignoles, 2016, 2018; Stragà et al., 2020); leadership (De Cristofaro et al., 2020; Fasoli & Hegarty, 2020; Pellegrini et al., 2020); social contexts as protective or harmful environments (Baams & Russell, 2021; Bagci et al., 2020); effects of Coronavirus emergency on LGBTQ+ people (Drabble, & Eliason, 2021; Solomon et al., 2021). Overall, these studies have shown that there is higher acceptance of LGBTQ+ people around the world and more recognition of their rights; however, such progress shows a lot of variation across different countries and it is also vulnerable.…”

“Protect the women!” Trans‐exclusionary feminist issue framing and support for transgender rights

“…Second, we show that, when including a missing category for the religiosity variable, the primary conclusions of our main model remain largely unchanged. A core determinant of attitudes toward both LGB (Flores, 2015;Lewis, 2011) as well as transgender individuals (Earle et al, 2021;Flores et al, 2018b) (but see Flores (2015), Harrison and Michelson (2019), Hoffarth and Hodson (2020), (Skipworth et al, 2010) The descriptive distribution of preference among heterosexual and LGB individuals is exhibited in Figure A2. 2 and A7 on support for the GRA.…”