Male Sexual Schemata and Responses to Male Homosexuality

Abstract

College students were led to focus on schemata which emphasized either the "heterosexual" or "carnal" nature of male sexuality, and were or were not led to consider the sexual orientation implications of these schemata for the general male population. Subjects then responded to a written account of an instance of male homosexual behavior. When not directly confronted with sexual orientation implications, heterosexual schema subjects reported the target's behavior to be more unusual, indicative of homosexuality, and negative than did carnal schema subjects. When general sexual orientation implications were made salient, carnal schema subjects reacted more negatively than heterosexual schema subjects. These results are discussed in terms of attitudes toward homosexuality, personal threat, and schematic processing.