Homophobe: Who is he?

Social psychologist, Doctor of Psychological Sciences Olga Gulevich and personality psychologist, candidate of psychological sciences Evgeny Osin experimentally revealed the character traits of homophobe. They were asked about their study by Natalia Zotova.

- How does your study differ from others?

Evgeny Osin: Back in the 60s, it was believed that homosexuality was a disease, there were classic works that tried to justify it. The American psychological and psychiatric associations changed their opinion in the 70s under the influence of scientific facts. Studies have accumulated that showed that homosexuals in all indicators of psychological disorders from heterosexuals do not differ (if we take into account the fact of social pressure on them).

Olga Gulevich: So since the 80s the idea of ​​non-scrimination has spread in the West. There are a bunch of American methods for studying the attitude of society to LGBT. We have nothing. But we have a unique situation when not anti -discrimination laws are adopted, but, on the contrary, discriminatory.

-Yes, here is the law on “gay propaganda” how psychologists relate?

Osin: From a psychological point of view, the law has been formulated incorrectly: "The distorted idea of ​​the social equivalent of traditional and non -traditional relations." The existing scientific data show that it is not at all distorted. Any psychologist who is guided by this law in his work acts contrary to a professional position. The psychologist is obliged to tell a teenager who came to him, who realized himself gay that there is nothing wrong with this. And the law prohibits this.

The story with children-404 is very indicative . After the court’s decision, there were large debates among psychologists: one colleague wrote an examination on “children-404” and performed unprofessional in it, appealing to unscientific sources such as the Old Testament. Of course, the whole community said: "What are you?!"

- What task did you set for yourself?

Gulevich: We wanted to see what performances are behind homophobia. Usually, in such cases, foreign methods are adapted, but we found that this discourse is a little not ours. For example, in the West, a lot of attention is paid to the discussion of homosexual rights. What, in principle, do not have. But there are features: they think about homosexuality as a threat to the West, phenomenon, alien to our culture ...

Homophobes refused to fill the questionnaire until we changed the word “homosexuals” to “homosexuals” in it.

- And how is homophobia different from racism or sexism?

Gulevich: There are studies showing: people who demonstrate one type of prejudice show another, dislike of homosexuals goes to racial prejudices to a heap. And the factors, which both affect the same, are also approximately the same. Authoritarianism, a sense of danger (“What if they attack us?”), Group identity - the realization that “they” violate “our” norm. But other researchers argue that homophobia has their own specifics. A recent American study showed that the greatest prejudices in relation to the African Americans are demonstrated by people who consider the race to be something biologically determined: "Negro means a freak." With homosexuals, on the contrary: if I think that this is an innate, not licentiousness or personal choice, then I am more tolerant of them.

- How long have you conducted research?

Osin: Quickly. Apparently, in society this topic is so lively that we managed to get more than a thousand respondents in just a week. In the process of other studies, we, on the contrary, collect samples for a long time and painfully for months.

Gulevich: True, homophobes refused to fill out the questionnaire until we changed the word “homosexual” to “homosexuals” in it. And on the other hand, we received a reaction: guys, why such a homophobic questionnaire? We were simply interested in the structure of homophobia, and we painted it in detail. At the same time, it turned out that either a person clearly against homosexuals and shares all the prejudices, or tolerante and does not share any.

- So what qualities do homophobes have?

Gulevich: Men are more homophobic than women, and men with ideas about a real man as a macho. Well, this is a standard result for different crops. Religious people are more homophobic than unbelievers. But we did not find any connection with age and education. Usually in Western research the older a person, the more he demonstrates prejudices, their education, on the contrary, reduces them. And what does the lack of communication with education mean? Our education is arranged so that it does not form tolerance.

Osin: According to our data, the Russians on average demonstrated great homophobia than residents of other Russian -speaking countries and emigrants.

- What else?

Gulevich: Homophobia is primarily caused by personality traits, but a social climate. The most powerful connection with prejudice is possessed by indicators of social desirability: the more a person wants to be accepted by society, the more he needs approval of others, the more prejudices he expresses.

But there are also personal prerequisites. Homophobia helps to strengthen faith in the only correct answer, the inability to assume that I can be wrong.

Osin: as we saw, people are more prone to prejudice who believe that the world can and should be controlled. The most powerful ties among homophobia were with the values ​​of tradition and security, the smallests - with the values ​​of tolerance, equality, autonomy of thought and hedonism.

The direct connection of homophobia with authoritarianism is very strong. Authoritarianism is an uncritical acceptance of what comes from power in society: from elders, from political leaders. Reich suggested that an authoritarian society forms an authoritarian person.

Homophobia is most characteristic of people who have grown up in a controlling family and at the same time having suppressed feelings for representatives of their gender.

Gulevich: Yes, but try to show it on an empirical level ... authoritarianism is a protective reaction from fear. All pieces associated with subordination of power and ignoring individual rights, even in the United States grew after terrorist attacks. Therefore, it is very profitable to frighten the country with an external threat.

Osin: In recent years, in line with the theory of self -determination, the role of support for autonomy has been studied. They compare people who grew up in controlling families, where they were imposed on a point of view, and in the conditions where parents gave children the opportunity to choose opinions on various issues. It turned out that homophobia is most characteristic of people who grew up in a controlling family and at the same time having suppressed feelings for representatives of their gender. That is, a person feels attraction, but cannot afford it, because he was brought up like that - and becomes a pronounced homophobe.

- It turns out that the controlling family will rather impose homophobic views?

Gulevich: It depends on the norms common in culture. In our culture, homosexuality was always considered deviation in one way or another.

Osin: I recently read the study of the American cultural scientist Luis Crompton "Homosexuality and civilization." He has a hypothesis that the rejection of homosexuality in the Old Testament is connected, first of all, with the fact that the Jews fought with hostile cults, the ceremonies of which included dressing in clothes of the opposite sex and ritual prostitution.

Gulevich: They tried to replace competitors.

Osin: And the homophobic interpretations of these prohibitions, as well as the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah, appeared in the Christian tradition only in the 3rd - IV century AD.

- And what social traits are inherent in homophobes?

Gulevich: With social traits, we turned out to be Western research. In addition to faith in a dangerous world that leads to authoritarianism, faith in the world competitive is important: if I believe that people are wolves trying to bite my heel, I begin to believe that the hierarchy existing in society is justified. Someone is higher, someone is lower, but everything is in their places. And in fact, it is precisely the low -standing groups that often become the object of prejudice: “So they need, they are freaks.” The third story is a faith in a fair world: for yourself or for others. If I believe that the world is fair to me, I forgive, I am patient, I am non -sound. But if I believe that the world is fair to others, then I in every possible way denigrate those who were in a difficult situation: sick with cancer, victims of rape. They themselves are to blame!

The last paragraph is a faith in the integrity of the social group of LGBT. People can perceive any social group in different ways: as a united evil force or simply as a set of individuals. And if I perceive a group that I do not like, as a holistic one, I treat it even worse: not only is the enemy, and also powerful, with common purposes.

In American schools there are Gay-Straight Alliance-meetings where students of different orientations can see and understand each other.

- Blue lobby?

Gulevich: That's it!

Aspen: The most powerful result that we got is associated with personal experience. People with the highest level of homophobia say that they had never had homosexual experience, did not have a single homosexual to be attributed to a person of their gender and among the people they met. And the less reliable information, the more speculations.

Gulevich: This is the theory of intergroup contact: when we look into the eyes of another and understand that he is also a person, a negative attitude falls. But contact must be organized carefully. A hundred years ago, in the 1920s, Loppard identified three conditions for the interaction of people from different groups: the community of goals, the equality of rights in a situation of communication and the approval of this contact from the people important to us. You can’t just shove into one room of gays and homophobes and see what will happen - it will work in the opposite direction.

Osin: There are Gay - Straight in American schools Alliance is a meeting where students of different orientations can see and understand each other. Once, on this principle, events were built to reduce interracial conflicts, and in recent years they began to work with homo- and heterosexuals. Scientific data accumulated, and it became clear that homophobia was harmful not only for the homosexuals themselves - it was previously one could assume that since there are 5%in society, then God with them. But it turned out that homophobia very worsens the psychological atmosphere in the team, from this and heterosexual adolescents increase the indicators of depression, drug use, suicidality. The fact is that many adolescents undergo a stage of doubt in their orientation. This is completely normal. And if at this moment they begin to humiliate him on homophobic topics, the teenager will suffer very much regardless of what he is. There was a curious study with the analysis of shooting in American schools over 20 years. It turned out that in all these cases there was a humiliation of future “shooters” on the basis of gender identity: supposedly they are not courageous enough. So they took weapons and went to school with him to prove to the offenders that they were real men.

- And how else can I improve the situation?

Gulevich: It is easier to influence the prejudices themselves, and not on the human qualities from which they stem. For example, to spread materials about the genetic specification of sexual orientation: it is based on biology, not a fashion or personal choice. There is a more global approach: to lower the level of authoritarianism in society. But for this you need to change the education system. The Russian education system contributes to the formation of an authoritarian personality: there is one correct opinion, this is the opinion of the teacher, adults must be obeyed ...

Osin: A person develops a number of stages as a person develops. We are born hedonists, strive to enjoy and avoid punishments. Later we assign social standards of the environment, begin to consider the “correct” generally accepted point of view. And only then does the stage of the formation of an autonomous personality come when a person compares different views and values, seeks himself. But some people do not go to this stage at all and remain with the entire package of the prejudices imposed on them.

The company must support the formation of autonomy. The autonomous personality is more adaptive: in changing conditions, it is able to weigh the situation and make an independent decision that goes beyond the finished recipes. But its minus for society is that it is more unpredictable, it is difficult to manage it. There are societies that are unprofitable for the autonomy of the individual: such a society is interested in the fact that people “do not lean out” and go where the leadership will say.

Soviet society was intolerant of any dissent. In the 90s, freedom came, and people became more tolerant of everything. But it seems that many people in the conditions of this freedom without clear value guidelines have felt uneasy - perhaps the current mushroom rolling back is associated with this, when strict social standards are again imposed.

- Do you think your study can help solve the problem of homophobia?

Osin: What we did is only the first step. We have developed a tool for measuring homophobia and showed that it works. Then we will explore causal patterns: to study how homophobia is formed and what mechanisms can change the point of view of people to LGBT.