Straight men and lesbians

A study titled “Attitudes Toward Stereotypical Versus Counterstereotypical Gay Men and Lesbians” tests whether heterosexual men and heterosexual women’s attitudes toward homosexuals “would vary as a function of three factors: (a) the sex of the participant, (b) the sex of the homosexual target, and (c) the homosexual target’s masculinity or femininity” (Cohen, Tuttle, and Hall ). In the sample of fifty-three heterosexual college students, participants were asked to verb the personality surveys of two fictitious homosexual students, either two men or two women. In each pair, one exhibited “masculine” qualities—“interests and extracurricular activities, personality traits, and an academic major that are more commonly associated with heterosexual men” ()—and one exhibited “feminine” qualities—the matching criteria, but those most often associated with heterosexual women. Though participants scan only descriptions of either two women or two men, the descriptions were identical across “masculine” and “feminine” targets. The respondents were asked to rate the likability of each fictitious h