People’s social value depends on their sexual orientation and gender identity

Abstract The present study aimed to investigate discrimination against transsexuals. A experimental study was carried out that consisted in the presentation of a fictitious news about photos of a person that were leaked according to the victim’s gender assigned at birth (male vs. female), their sexual orientation and gender identity (heterosexual vs. homosexual vs. transsexual), resulting in six experimental conditions. The measure of discrimination used was the allocation of the indemnification amount. The study included 300 cisgender heterosexual participants of both genders, randomly allocated in one of the six experimental conditions. The results enhanced the evidence that people tend to value their own group and discriminate against transsexual people. Variations were found regarding the target gender and the discriminator’s gender. The findings were discussed based on the Social Identity Theory and the threat to distinctiveness.

Evidence of Validity of a Modern Homonegativity Measure against Gays and Lesbians

Abstract The goal of this research was to adapt and obtain validity evidence of the Modern Homonegativity Scale (MHS), which is set by two parallel forms with 12 items, one of them referring to gays (MHS-G) and the other referring to lesbians (MHS-L). In the first study 418 heterosexuals between 18 and 58 years old (M = 24,9; SD = 7,23), mostly women (66,3%) living at João Pessoa-PB (50,5%) answered. Both scales have shown as unidimensional and containing a high degree of internal consistency. The second study had the participation of 273 heterosexuals between 18 and 55 years old (M = 23,7; SD = 6,33), mostly women (69%). The confirmatory factor analysis showed satisfactory adjustment indexes for the proposed model and the Item Response Theory (IRT) demonstrated a good degree of discrimination and variation of the difficulty parameters. Therefore, we may conclude MHS is psychometrically valid, easily applicable and can be used in research contexts.