April 8, 2008
Project Implicit, outing admired gays and lesbians decreases prejudice
Project Implicit is a Harvard based study that maps implicit biases in people by showing images of people (political candidates, racial groups, etc.) to people and asking them to associate or disassociate positive and negative attributes with the images.
I blogged about the political candidate test a few months ago.
A recent Project Implicit study shows that public outing of prominent gays and lesbians leads to an overall, and dramatic, acceptance of gays and lesbians among those who have little or no interaction with gays and lesbians in their daily lives.
comments
2 Responses to “Project Implicit, outing admired gays and lesbians decreases prejudice”
Leave a Reply
“…acceptance of gays and lesbians among those who have little or no interaction with gays and lesbians in their daily lives.”
That’s the part that always kills me. People think they have little or no interaction with gays and lesbians in their daily lives because a) many gays and lesbians feel the need to hide their sexual orientation for fear of discrimination, and b) most gays and lesbians behave pretty much the same way as straights, so their orientation isn’t always knowable to people they interact with.
All this to say, it’s astonishing to me that, in 2008, so many people still are having trouble “accepting” gays and lesbians.
yep.
like my grandfather who told the partner of my semi-out uncle at the family reunion: David, I want you to get Ward to bring you out to Modesto for a couple days.
I couldn’t tell if it was his way of saying something or not.
on the other hand, he also hugged David goodbye and said, “I’ll be praying for you.”
of course David responded, “I’ll be praying for you too.”