Experiential attitudes develop when affects and cognitions associated with specific interpersonal interactions are generalized to all lesbians and gay men. A person with positive experiences, therefore, expresses generally favorable attitudes and a person with negative experiences reports unfavorable favorable attitudes because of the experiences. Note that experiential attitudes do not inevitably follow interactions. It is necessary also that those interactions themselves (rather than, for example, ideological considerations )
provide the primary basis for the attitude. Interactions have consequences for both beliefs and affects associated with lesbians and gay men. Because they provide information, face-to face interactions tend to refute stereotypes and reduce ignorance, which Marmor (1980) identified as the most important sources of hostility toward homosexual persons. At the same time, interpersonal encounters have an emotional impact that individuals can generalize to all lesbians and gay men. Thus, heterosexuals who know lesbians and gay men are better able than others to recognize stereotypes as inaccurate, and are more likely to express tolerant attitudes as well. Since only about one-fourth of the adults in the United States report that they have homosexual friends or acquaintances (Newsweek Poll, 1983), it can be hypothesized that attitudes will become more favorable overall as more lesbians and gay men disclose their sexual orientation to friends or family. For the present, however, we must assume that only a minority of people in the United States have attitudes based on experience. The remainder have formed their opinions and beliefs without the benefit of personal contact. Consequently, stereotypical beliefs about gay men and lesbians are prevalent, and it is appropriate here to discuss their forms and effects.
Most common stereotypes are related to cross-sex characteristics. Additionally, significant numbers of individuals characterize male homosexuals as mentally ill, promiscuous, lonely, insecure, and likely to be child molesters, while lesbians have been described as aggressive and hostile toward men. Positive characteristics are also part of the homosexual stereotype including such traits as sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, imagination, and neatness.
Recent research in social cognition has revealed the importance of stereotypes as cognitive categories for imposing order and predictability on the world. Some people feel the need for categorization so strongly that they increase their liking for a person simply because she or he labels another as homosexual. Homosexual persons who violate stereotypical expectations (e.g., masculine gay men and feminine lesbians) may actually be disliked. Such nonconformity may not be noticed, however, since labeling itself can lead people to perceive stereotypical behaviors, whether or not they occur. . . .
It frequently is assumed that feelings of personal threat result in strong negative attitudes toward homosexuality, whereas lack of threat leads to neutral or positive attitudes. This perspective often is associated with the term homophobia, and it derives from a psychodynamic view that prejudiced attitudes serve to reduce tension aroused by unconscious conflicts.
Attitudes are likely to serve a defensive function when an individual perceives some analogy between homosexual persons and her or his own unconscious conflicts. Subsequently, that person responds to gay men and lesbians as a way of externalizing inner conflicts and thereby reducing the anxiety associated with them. The conflicts specific to antihomosexual prejudice presumably involve a person's gender identity, sexual object choice, or both. For example, unconscious conflicts about one's own sexuality or gender identity might be attributed to lesbians and gay men through a process of projection. Such a strategy permits people to externalize the conflicts and to reject their own unacceptable urges by rejecting lesbians and gay men (who symbolize those urges) without consciously recognizing the urges as their own. Since contact with homosexual persons threatens to make conscious those thoughts that have been repressed, it inevitably arouses anxiety in defensive individuals. Consequently, defensive attitudes are likely to be negative.
Several psychodynamic explanations offered for attitudes toward lesbians and gay men fit with the defensive function. Heterosexual men may envy gay men because the latter are not constrained by the masculine ideal. Heterosexuals may also envy the sexual freedom presumably enjoyed by lesbians and gay men. In either case, the envy is presumably translated unconsciously into hostility. In a similar vein, Cory (1951) also proposed that negative feelings toward opposite-sex homosexuals result from heterosexuals' feelings of rejection as potential sexual partners. Weinberg (1972) hypothesized that since many people strive for vicarious immortality by having ch