Fragile Heterosexuality
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- Fragile Heterosexuality_(publisher_version)
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Previous research demonstrates that membership of majority groups is often perceived as more fragile than membership of minority groups. Four studies (N1 = 90, N2 = 247, N3 = 500, N4 = 1,176) investigated whether this was the case for heterosexual identity, relative to gay identity. Support for fragile heterosexuality was found using various methods: sexual orientation perceptions of a target who engaged in incongruent behavior, free-responses concerning behaviors required to change someone's mind about a target's sexual orientation, agreement with statements about men/women's sexual orientation, and agreement with gender-neutral statements about sexual orientation. Neither participant nor target gender eliminated or reversed this effect. Additionally, we investigated multiple explanations (moderators) of the perceived difference in fragility between heterosexual identity and gay identity and found that higher estimates of the gay/lesbian population decreased the difference between the (higher) perceived fragility of heterosexual identity and the (lower) perceived fragility of gay identity.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Social Psychology |
Volume | 52 |
Issue number | 3 |
Pages (from-to) | 143-161 |
Number of pages | 19 |
ISSN | 1864-9335 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - May 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:
This work has been supported by the European Research Council (fund no. Starting grant 2017 to Keon West).
- estimates of gay/lesbian population, fragile sexual orientation, gay, heterosexuality, social normativity
Research areas
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