DOI: 10.3886/e209347
title: Examining Personality Correlates of Relationship Between Political Ideology and LGBT Attitudes

description: In spite of great strides made in the past century towards the acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or otherwise queer (LGBT) individuals, the vilification of said individuals continues in the United States. This is largely perpetuated by individuals who are aligned with conservative political ideology. Past research indicates that conservative individuals have differential preferences for specific kinds of moral offenses and disgust elicitors. This study aimed to compare two models of the relationship between political ideology, LGBT attitudes, disgust sensitivity, and moral inclinations. The first model, dubbed the “Political Model”, proposes that subscales of disgust sensitivity and moral inclination that have empirical support as correlates with conservatism lead to distinct latent variables which contribute to the relationship between political ideology and LGBT attitudes. The second model, known as the “Sexual/Protection Model”, combines subscales from each measure to create latent variables based on themes shared between both measures and which reflect conservative sentiment – those themes being rejection of non-normative sexual experiences, and emphasis on protecting ingroups. Although initial results indicated that both models had mediocre but acceptable fit, they were re-calculated with the removal of the moral disgust variable due to its lack of significant correlation with multiple other key model variables. These analyses indicated that the updated “Sexual/Protection Model” has excellent fit.
description: Response Rates: A grand total of 339 participants were recruited, but 58 were removed from analysis because of self-admitted random responding to questions, leaving a total sample size of 281.
description: Presence of Common Scales: <b>Demographics</b> Demographics that were collected include age, race/ethnicity, identification as transgender, gender identity, and sexuality. This section also contains an item asking participants if they answered randomly at any point in the survey, with participants answering “yes” being excluded from data analysis.<br><b><br>Moral Inclinations</b><b> </b>To measure moral inclinations, the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) was used (Graham et al., 2011). This measure was composed to directly reflect the Moral Foundations Theory. The MFQ is a 32-item survey composed of two sections, each of which has one attention check item, meaning that each of the five moral foundations proposed in the MFT has three relevant questions per section. The first section, referred to as the “Moral Relevance” section, asks participants to rate considerations by the degree to which they are utilized when determine how morally right or wrong something is. The second section, titled the “Moral Judgements” section, has participants rate the degree to which they agree with morally-charged statements. Both sections are scored with six-point Likert scales, with the first section’s scale reflecting relevance (0 = not at all relevant, 1 = not very relevant, 2 = slightly relevant, 3 = somewhat relevant, 4 = very relevant, and 5 = extremely relevant), and the second section’s scale reflecting agreement (0 = strongly disagree, 1 = moderately disagree, 2 = slightly disagree, 3 = slightly agree, 4 = moderately agree, 5 = strongly agree). The averaged Cronbach’s alpha across all subscales of the MFQ is .73 (Graham et al., 2011). The subscales most relevant to this study – ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity – have Cronbach’s alphas of .69, .71, and .82, respectively. These low alphas may be due to the low number of items in each respective subscale. Internal consistency of subscales were assessed for the proposed study’s sample using Cronbach’s alpha.<br><b><br>Disgust Sensitivity</b><b> </b>Disgust sensitivity was measured using the Three Domain Disgust Scale (TDDS) (Tybur et al, 2009). The TDDS aligns with Tybur’s three domain model of disgust (Tybur et al., 2013). The scale is 21 items long, with each of the three subscales having 7 respective items. Items are scored with a 7-point Likert-style scale with labels only for the extreme values (i.e. 0 = “not disgusting at all”, 6 = “extremely disgusting”). Cronbach’s alphas for the subscales have been reported as .86 for Sexual Disgust, .91 for Moral Disgust, and .81 for Pathogen Disgust (Olatunji et al., 2012). Likewise, internal consistency of the TDDS was reported here using Cronbach’s alpha.<b>LGBT Attitudes</b><b> <br><br>Attitudes Towards Lesbians, Gay Men, and Bisexuals.</b> Attitudes towards lesbians, gay men, and bisexual individuals were measured using the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Knowledge and Attitudes Scale (LGB-KASH) (Worthington, 2005). The LGB-KASH is comprised of 28 items reflecting five factors: Hate; Knowledge of LGB History, Symbols, and Community; LGB Civil Rights; Religious Conflict; and Internalized Affirmativeness. Items are scored on a 7-point Likert scale, with labels reflecting how characteristic each statement of the participants’ views (1 = “very uncharacteristic of me”, 7 = “very characteristic of me and my views”).Some modifications were made to the scale for the purposes of this study. First, the Knowledge of LGB History subscale was not used, due to its lack of relevance to the study at hand. Second, several items (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 19, and 19) were reverse-coded when they were not in the original measure. This is so that the subscales used uniformly indicate positive valence of attitudes. Internal consistency was estimated using Cronbach’s alpha.It should be noted that, while there are valid queer identities which lie outside of the scope of homosexuality and bisexuality, attitudes towards such individuals will not be measured to save time and because of their general exclusion from relevant measures, as is the case with the LGB-KASH. This is why the shortened acronym “LGBT” has been used throughout rather than a more inclusive “LGBTQIA”. <br><b><br>Attitudes Towards Transgender Individuals.</b> Attitudes towards transgender individuals were measured using the Transgender Attitudes and Beliefs Scale (TABS) (Kanamori et al., 2017). The scale consists of 33 items, reflected across three factors: Interpersonal Conflict, Sex/Gender Beliefs, and Human Value. Items are scored using a 5-point Likert scale, with values ranging from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”). Although these labels are opposite of those in the original survey (lower scores corresponding with agreement), this will be reversed to align with the pattern of the other Likert-type scales used in this study. As part of data analysis, internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha.<br><b><br>Political Affiliation</b> Political affiliation was measured using a single 7-item Likert scale, incorporated into the demographics page. This has been determined to be a valid means of assessing political affiliation and will be utilized because of the already large number of surveys individuals are asked to complete for this study (Jost, et al., 2008; Tybur et al., 2010).
description: Of the total number of participants, 283 were recruited from freshman-level psychology courses at Southeastern Louisiana University, wherein they were granted course credit for their participation. The remaining 56 respondents were recruited from one sophomore-level psychology course and granted extra credit in that course for participating.
description: Students taking undergraduate-level psychology courses at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana, United States of America. Smallest Geographic Unit: Louisiana, United States of America
description: web-based survey;