Homophobia

Homophobia among University Students The term homophobia, abouttimes referred to as homonegativity and sexual prejudice, refers to an unreasonable fear, avoidance, and difference of homosexuals. Society has greatly changed their views on homo sexual practice over the years, yet homophobia mute exists today. Extensive research has been conducted on homosexuality and how it affects our society. A previous take aimed at measuring homophobia examined literature on the topic since 1987.It was rig that firearm society has seen a reduction in homophobia over the past twenty dollar bill five years, discrimination still remains to be an issue (Ahmad & Bhugra, 2010). other field of battle was conducted at a university that examined the impact of college sexuality classes on students attitudes toward homosexuality. This study used a comparison group and had participants of both groups take cardinal st bes, one at the beginning of the semester and one at the end.This study found that a sexuality curriculum can help to reduce homophobia by exposing students to accurate information (Rogers, McRee & Arntz, 2009). However there continues to be issues with measuring such(prenominal) a sensitive theme for reasons such as, measuring an attitude is surd to do, and acquiring honest responses can also be a challenge. The accede study aims at measuring homophobia among university students by asking a large range of dubietys around the central theme. Methods ParticipantsParticipants were ( ) male and ( ) female undergraduate psychology students from a California university. Materials A stick with was actual around sise main themes. Those sixt themes were then divided among six groups, three in each lab, and each group developed five to ten questions that would measure their delegate theme, and research five to ten more questions from research articles. Seventeen questions were developed to measure homophobia. One question asked if marriage between homosexual individu als is acceptable.Another question asked whether homosexual couples are as qualified to raise children as heterosexual couples. Another question asked the participant if they would end a friendship upon discovering a friend was gay. Most answers were presented on a likert scale, using anchors 1= potently check 2=agree 3=neither agree nor protest 4=disagree 5=strongly disagree. 1=strongly agree 2=agree 3=neither agree nor disagree 4=disagree 5=strongly disagree. However to ensure increased reliability, some questions were deleted and replaced with new ones and the survey was administered a second time.Procedure The survey was posted on psychsurveys. org for three days. Participants were emailed a link to access to and complete the survey. After the survey was complete, a reliability analysis was done, and some of the questions were replaced with new ones. Participants then had another(prenominal) three days to log back into the survey and re-take it. Results Discussion In order to increase this scales reliability, a larger survey should be used in the future to assess homophobia, with more in depth questions about feelings and attitudes around homophobia.Directly asking participants whether or not they are homophobic would create a floor effect because it is unlikely that anyone would hear themselves as homophobic. Instead, many carefully thought out questions should be used. ontogenesis questions to assess a feeling like homophobia is a difficult task. Questions urgency to be worded in such a precise way as to not lead the participant into answering untruthfully. Questions need to be unbiased so that the participant does not feel pressured to answer a authentic way.In addition, the answer format was not ideal for all questions in the homophobia parting of the survey. Answers were mostly reported on a likert scale for statistical purposes, bandage open-ended responses may have been more insightful. Furthermore, the sample used in the current study was a ll college students from California. Had this survey been administered to non-students from a more fusty state, or at a religious gathering, the results that were obtained may have been greatly different. Conclusion ReferencesMcCann, P. D. , Minichiello, V. , & Plummer, D. (2009). Is homophobia inevitable? Evidence that explores the constructed nature of homophobia, and the techniques through which men forget it. Journal of Sociology, 45(2), 201-220. Retrieved from http//jos. sagepub. com. libproxy. csun. edu/content/45/2/201. full. pdf html (McCann, Minichiello & Plummer, 2009) Ahmad, S. , & Bhugra, D. (2010). Homophobia An updated review of the literature. familiar and relationship therapy, 25(4), 447-455. Retrieved from http//web. bscohost. com. libproxy. csun. edu/ehost/detail? emailprotected&vid=1&hid=122&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ== (Ahmad & Bhugra, 2010) Rogers, A. , McRee, N. , & Arntz, D. (2009). Using a college human sexuality course to combat homophobia. Sex educati on, 9(3), 211225. Retrieved from http//web. ebscohost. com. libproxy. csun. edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer? emailprotected&vid=1&hid=122 (Rogers, McRee & Arntz, 2009)