“We’re tolerant and they’re prejudiced”: Same-sex marriage supporters’ and opponents’ perceptions of supportive and oppositional claims

Abstract

The current research examined the proposition that debates over same-sex marriage are characterized, at least in part, by conflicting understandings about what is and is not prejudiced, normative and true. Toward this end, Australians’ (N = 415) prejudice judgements of supportive and oppositional statements toward same-sex marriage were measured and analysed with analyses of variance. Unsurprisingly, same-sex marriage supporters perceived a supportive statement as unprejudiced, tolerant, truthful, in pursuit of individual liberty, and normative; oppositional statements were seen in precisely the opposite manner. Same-sex marriage opponents, however, disagreed, instead judging an oppositional statement as unprejudiced, tolerant, truthful, in pursuit of individual liberty, and normative; it was a supportive statement that was seen as relatively prejudiced. These effects remained even after controlling for independent expressions of in-group favouritism. The current data align with a collective naïve realism perspective, in which group members see their own views as veridical and those of disagreeing others as biased. We argue that prejudice-reduction efforts must be instantiated to facilitate a common in-group identity between supporters and opponents to enable consensus over facts and, ultimately, what is and is not prejudice. Without this consensus, each side of the political debate may simply hurl the pejorative label of “prejudice” against the other, with likely little opportunity for social influence and social change.

Discriminatory, yet socially accepted? Targets’ perceptions of subtle and blatant expressions of ethno-racial prejudice

“…Although not focus of the present study, considering potential differential understandings of prejudice between target and non-target groups is an important avenue for future research. Different understandings of what counts as prejudice and what does not can plausibly impede political debates (Platow et al, 2023) and intergroup dialogue (Carter and Murphy, 2015). In the long run, this information could inform practitioners when they are deciding which content to target in anti-prejudice interventions and how to target it.…”

“…The latter finding indicates that targets (as compared to non-targets) of prejudice might at least partly rely on different processes when deciding whether a specific event is attributable to prejudice or not. Furthermore, a study on prejudice attributions of supporters versus opponents of same-sex marriage suggests that group identity influences understandings of which beliefs constitute prejudice, possibly via different ingroup-norms (Platow et al, 2023). Platow et al (2022) have further proposed that targets of prejudice might perceive expressions of prejudice differently than non-targets, due to their lived experiences with prejudice and discrimination.…”