Division of Psychology, University of Northampton, Northampton, UK.
Department of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK.
Cogn Emot. 2020 Sep;34(6):1123-1142. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2020.1726292. Epub 2020 Feb 13.
Homophobia has decreased in past decades, but gut-level disgust towards gay men lingers. It has been suggested that disgust can be reduced by inducing its proposed opposite emotion, elevation. Research suggests elevation might reduce homophobia, but only general elevation (not elevation evoked by gay people) and general attitudes (rather than disgust) have been studied. Nor has elevation's effect on homophobia been differentiated from effects of related emotions, such as admiration or surprise. We pretested a series of news stories featuring either a gay man or a man of unspecified sexuality that were intended to distinctly elicit elevation, admiration, or surprise. We pre-registered the prediction that an elevation-inducing story would reduce negative attitudes by reducing disgust. In Study 1 ( = 593), participants who read elevation-inducing stories did not express more positive attitudes or less disgust towards gay men than those who read stories inducing admiration or surprise. The admiration stories elicited similar or lower levels of disgust than the elevation stories. Study 2 ( = 588), replicated the findings of Study 1 with improved stimuli and measures. Both studies suggest that elevation may not uniquely reduce homophobia, as elevation and admiration have similar effects on this prejudice.
恐同症在过去几十年有所减少，但人们对男同性恋者的本能厌恶仍然存在。有人认为，通过诱发对立情绪——崇敬，可以减少这种厌恶。研究表明，崇敬可能会减少恐同，但之前的研究只关注了一般的崇敬（而不是由同性恋者引发的崇敬）和一般态度（而不是厌恶），也没有将崇敬对恐同的影响与其他相关情绪（如钦佩或惊讶）的影响区分开来。我们预先测试了一系列新闻故事，这些故事的主角要么是男同性恋者，要么是性取向不明的人，旨在明确引发崇敬、钦佩或惊讶。我们预先预测，引发崇敬的故事通过减少厌恶感，会降低负面态度。在研究 1（ = 593）中，与阅读引发钦佩或惊讶的故事的参与者相比，阅读引发崇敬的故事的参与者对男同性恋者的态度没有更积极，也没有减少对他们的厌恶感。钦佩故事引发的厌恶感与崇敬故事相似或更低。研究 2（ = 588）用改进的刺激物和测量方法复制了研究 1 的发现。这两项研究表明，崇敬可能不会独特地减少恐同，因为崇敬和钦佩对这种偏见有相似的影响。
