Attitude Toward Homosexuality

1. Abstract

The Attitude Toward Homosexuality (ATH) scale is a concise, psychometrically validated four-item self-report instrument derived as a specialized subset of Gregory M. Herek’s foundational Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men (ATLG) scale. Developed to evaluate individual prejudice, affective condemnation, and cognitive endorsement or rejection of male homosexuality, the ATH isolates core evaluative dimensions from the broader 20-item ATLG inventory. Specifically, this abbreviated measure captures both explicit negative reactions—manifesting as visceral moral disgust, condemnation, and social disapproval—and positive or accepting orientations regarding the naturalness, ethical legitimacy, and societal integration of gay men. Comprising four balanced items (two positively valenced and two reverse-scored negatively valenced statements), the instrument utilizes a standard multi-point Likert-type response format ranging typically from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 or 7 (Strongly Agree).

Despite its brevity, the ATH exhibits robust psychometric properties across diverse empirical paradigms, notably within social psychology, political science, consumer behavior, and marketing research. Empirical evaluations consistently demonstrate high internal consistency reliability, with Cronbach’s coefficient alpha typically ranging between .82 and .91 across heterogeneous demographic cohorts. Confirmatory factor analyses repeatedly validate a unidimensional latent factor structure, demonstrating exceptional factor loadings that routinely exceed .70. Construct validity is firmly supported via strong convergent associations with right-wing authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, traditional gender role adherence, and hostile sexism, alongside discriminant divergence from general social conservatism and non-ideological misanthropy. In contemporary applied disciplines—such as marketing, media communications, and consumer psychology—the ATH serves as an essential moderating variable, quantifying how preexisting audience bias systematically conditions cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions to LGBTQI+-inclusive corporate branding, advertising representations, and organizational diversity initiatives.

2. Keywords

Attitude Toward Homosexuality, ATLG scale, sexual prejudice, homonegativity, homophobia measurement, Gregory Herek, LGBTQ marketing, advertising moderation, sexual stigma, psychometrics

3. Authors

The foundational theoretical and psychometric framework underlying the Attitude Toward Homosexuality (ATH) scale originates from the work of Gregory M. Herek, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Herek is an internationally recognized authority on sexual prejudice, anti-gay violence, and stigma associated with sexual orientation and gender identity. His development of the original Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men (ATLG) scale in the mid-1980s provided the empirical benchmark for quantifying modern sexual prejudice, leading directly to validated short-form extractions and specialized subscales.

Subsequent psychometric adaptations, including the refined four-item ATH subset, have been operationalized and popularized within applied consumer research, media effects, and organizational communication by various quantitative behavioral scientists. Key contributors adapting these items for marketing and communication paradigms include researchers examining diversity in commercial messaging, consumer evaluations of inclusive corporate campaigns, and the moderating role of viewer bias in advertising receptivity. Inquiries regarding the original ATLG scale architecture and theoretical permissions are traditionally directed to the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Davis.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Attitude Toward Homosexuality (ATH) scale is to deliver an economical, psychometrically rigorous, and low-burden diagnostic instrument designed to quantify sexual prejudice specifically targeted toward gay men. While the parent 20-item ATLG scale provides a comprehensive bifurcated evaluation of attitudes toward both lesbians (ATL subscale) and gay men (ATG subscale), many large-scale survey environments, experimental behavioral designs, and field studies face severe logistical limitations. Time constraints, participant survey fatigue, and cognitive overload frequently preclude the administration of extended psychometric batteries. The ATH resolves this operational dilemma by extracting the most diagnostically potent items that capture the overarching latent construct of homonegativity without sacrificing construct coverage, internal consistency, or predictive validity.

In academic psychology and sociological research, the ATH is deployed to investigate the etiology, maintenance, and structural correlates of sexual stigma. It enables researchers to map how personal characteristics—such as adherence to rigid gender norms, adherence to dogmatic religious doctrines, high social dominance orientation, and political conservatism—correlate with intergroup hostility. The scale assesses both visceral, moralistic rejections of homosexuality and higher-order cognitive beliefs concerning the psychological naturalness versus pathology of non-heterosexual orientations. By isolating attitudes toward gay men, the instrument accounts for the well-documented empirical phenomenon wherein male homosexuality often elicits distinct and significantly more severe punitive sanctions and social hostility than female homosexuality, particularly among heterosexual male respondents.

Beyond theoretical social psychology, the ATH has gained critical utility in applied disciplines such as advertising research, organizational behavior, and consumer psychology. In marketing research, the scale is routinely operationalized as a critical psychological moderator. When corporations introduce LGBTQI+-inclusive advertisements, commercial campaigns, or brand-advocacy stances, consumer responses diverge dramatically along ideological lines. By embedding the ATH into consumer testing batteries, market researchers can isolate the degree to which an individual’s preexisting sexual prejudice moderates ad credibility, brand evaluations, corporate social responsibility perception, and ultimate purchase intentions. Furthermore, in clinical and healthcare research, the scale facilitates the empirical assessment of cultural competence, healthcare provider bias, and systemic barriers experienced by sexual minorities navigating educational, judicial, and medical institutions.

5. Psychological Construct

The construct assessed by the Attitude Toward Homosexuality scale is sexual prejudice, conceptualized primarily as homonegativity—defined as negative attitudes, affective aversions, and derogatory cognitive evaluations directed toward individuals who engage in same-sex romantic or sexual behavior, or who self-identify as gay. Herek’s psychometric conceptualization moves deliberately beyond the historical, pathologizing clinical term “homophobia” (which implies an individual, irrational phobic anxiety) toward an ideological and social-psychological model of sexual stigma and prejudice. The ATH captures this multidimensional construct through a unified, high-potency latent factor that integrates two primary operational dimensions: affective condemnation and cognitive-evaluative moral judgment.

The first core dimension captured by the scale is Affective Condemnation and Disapproval. This facet taps into the experiential and emotional reactions elicited by the prospect or presence of male homosexuality. Affective hostility toward gay men is frequently characterized in the literature by visceral moral disgust, social aversion, and a perceived threat to communal purity. Within the ATH, affective items operationalize the extent to which an individual experiences internal discomfort, moral revulsion, or overt social condemnation when confronted with homosexuality. High scores on this dimension reflect an active emotional rejection of gay men, manifesting in beliefs that homosexual behavior is unacceptable, repellant, or deserving of formal and informal social sanctions.

The second core dimension is Cognitive Evaluation and Moral Legitimacy. This component evaluates the intellectual and ideological frameworks individuals use to categorize, understand, and judge homosexuality. It encompasses foundational assumptions regarding whether homosexuality represents a normal, natural, and biologically valid variation of human sexuality, versus an acquired, unnatural, or morally corrupt personal pathology. The reverse-scored items within the ATH explicitly probe this cognitive dimension by asking respondents to evaluate the moral equivalence between heterosexual and homosexual lifestyles, as well as the societal integration of gay individuals as full citizens deserving of equal dignity. Individuals scoring low in sexual prejudice endorse statements recognizing homosexuality as a natural, ethical, and fully valid human expression, whereas individuals with elevated scores endorse ideological propositions that view same-sex orientation as unnatural, aberrant, or socially destabilizing.

By balancing negatively valenced items (tapping visceral disgust and moral condemnation) with positively valenced, reverse-scored items (tapping cognitive acceptance, naturalness, and moral legitimacy), the ATH successfully circumvents acquiescence response bias while comprehensively indexing the full psychological spectrum from radical affirmation to extreme hostility.

6. Theoretical Framework

The Attitude Toward Homosexuality scale is firmly rooted in the theoretical paradigm of Sexual Stigma and Sexual Prejudice articulated by Gregory M. Herek, which synthesizes functional attitude theory, social identity theory, and evolutionary-sociological accounts of intergroup conflict. Central to this theoretical architecture is the crucial distinction between sexual stigma—the shared cultural knowledge of society’s negative regard for non-heterosexual behaviors and identities—and sexual prejudice, which refers to an individual’s internalized negative evaluation of sexual minorities. In Herek’s model, attitudes toward gay men do not exist in an ideological vacuum; rather, they perform specific psychological functions for the individual.

The foundational theoretical engine underpinning the ATH is Functional Attitude Theory, originally conceptualized by Daniel Katz and M. Brewster Smith, and later refined by Herek in the context of sexual attitudes. According to this framework, identical overt attitudes can serve entirely distinct psychological needs across different individuals. Herek identified three primary functions served by sexual prejudice:

• Value-Expressive Function: Under this mechanism, holding and expressing negative attitudes toward homosexuality allows individuals to validate and project their core personal values, particularly those tied to traditional religious morality, conventional family structures, and conservative ideologies. Rejecting gay men serves as an outward affirmation of one’s ethical, political, and spiritual self-concept.
• Social-Expressive (Social-Adjustive) Function: In environments where heteronormativity and anti-gay sentiments are normative, expressing negative attitudes toward gay men helps individuals maintain social belonging, gain acceptance, and avoid ostracism from relevant in-groups (e.g., peer networks, religious congregations, or conservative political communities).
• Defensive (Ego-Defensive) Function: Drawing from psychodynamic and terror management perspectives, some individuals project hostility toward gay men to manage anxiety regarding their own masculinity, self-worth, or latent sexual identity. By aggressively derogating gay men, individuals seek to psychologically reinforce their own heterosexual identity and masculine standing.

Furthermore, the scale’s theoretical foundation intersects with Social Identity Theory (developed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner) and System Justification Theory (John Jost). Homonegative attitudes function to protect the hegemony of the heterosexual in-group against perceived status-threats from the sexual minority out-group. Heterosexuality is constructed as the normative, institutionalized cultural standard; consequently, gay men are perceived as challenging traditional patriarchal gender roles and destabilizing established institutional hierarchies. The ATH captures this theoretical interface by indexing the degree to which an individual rejects the normative legitimacy of male homosexuality, thereby actively reinforcing existing social hierarchies.

7. Validity

The construct, convergent, predictive, and discriminant validity of the ATH scale has been extensively documented through decades of psychometric evaluation and replication studies across social, organizational, and marketing sciences.

Construct and Convergent Validity: Convergent validity is established through strong, theoretically coherent correlations between the ATH and established measures of ideological conservatism, authoritarian personality traits, and intergroup hostility. Across empirical studies, ATH scores exhibit significant positive correlations with the Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scale (typically $r = .50$ to $.68$), the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) scale ($r = .38$ to $.55$), and measures of Religious Fundamentalism ($r = .45$ to $.62$). Additionally, the scale correlates strongly with measures of traditional gender role ideology, adherence to patriarchal masculine norms, and Ambivalent Sexism—particularly hostile sexism ($r = .40$ to $.58$). Crucially, when compared against the full 10-item ATG subscale and the overarching 20-item ATLG scale, the four-item ATH subset consistently displays criterion correlation coefficients exceeding $r = .90$, confirming that the abbreviated scale preserves the core construct domain of the parent instrument.

Discriminant Validity: Discriminant validity has been validated by demonstrating that the ATH measures a specific orientation toward sexual minorities rather than generalized social misanthropy, neuroticism, or broad social anxiety. Correlations with the Big Five personality traits reveal near-zero associations with Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness, while exhibiting modest negative correlations with Openness to Experience ($r = -.20$ to $-.35$) and Agreeableness ($r = -.18$ to $-.30$). Furthermore, structural equation modeling confirms that the ATH is empirically separable from measures of racial prejudice and xenophobia, demonstrating that while these constructs share common roots in authoritarian cognition, sexual prejudice possesses unique explanatory variance driven by moral and gender-role violations.

Predictive Validity: The predictive validity of the ATH is exceptionally high in both experimental social psychology and consumer behavior research. In experimental settings, higher ATH scores reliably predict opposition to legal protections for LGBTQI+ individuals, resistance to same-sex marriage, and heightened behavioral avoidance during real or simulated interactions with openly gay men. In consumer psychology and advertising research, the ATH has proven to be an indispensable predictor of consumer brand evaluations. In studies where consumers are exposed to advertisements featuring gay male couples, participant ATH scores significantly moderate ad outcomes: individuals with low ATH scores display positive ad attitudes, elevated brand trust, and heightened purchase intentions, whereas individuals with elevated ATH scores demonstrate strong negative ad attitudes, brand derogation, and boycotting intentions.

8. Reliability

The Attitude Toward Homosexuality scale demonstrates exemplary reliability across multiple methodological indices, establishing that its four-item architecture provides a stable and statistically robust measurement tool.

Internal Consistency: Despite comprising only four items, the ATH consistently produces elevated internal consistency coefficients. In original validation studies and extensive subsequent replications in communication and consumer research, Cronbach’s coefficient alpha ($\alpha$) for the four-item scale routinely falls between .82 and .91. This is particularly remarkable given that coefficient alpha is mathematically sensitive to scale length, where shorter scales are statistically penalized. The high alpha values indicate that the inter-item correlations are exceptionally cohesive. Studies reporting McDonald’s omega ($\omega$), which provides a more robust estimate of composite reliability under conditions of heterogeneous item-factor loadings, similarly report values spanning .84 to .92, confirming that the scale captures its target latent variable with minimal measurement error.

Item-Total Correlations: Corrected item-total correlations across empirical datasets consistently exceed .60, with individual item values typically falling in the range of .65 to .81. These figures indicate that every individual item contributes robust, non-redundant variance to the total composite score. Deletion of any single item from the four-item battery consistently leads to a decrease or stagnation in the overall coefficient alpha, validating the retention of all four items.

Test-Retest Reliability: Longitudinal and test-retest evaluations indicate that the ATH measures a relatively stable ideological attitude rather than transient affective mood states. Over two- to four-week administration intervals, test-retest reliability coefficients have been observed ranging from $r = .80$ to $.88$, indicating strong temporal stability in the absence of targeted interventions or major sociopolitical events. Over longer intervals (six months or more), the scale demonstrates sufficient stability to serve as a baseline covariate, while retaining sufficient sensitivity to detect genuine changes in attitude following targeted educational curricula, contact interventions, or public policy shifts.

9. Factor Analysis

The underlying dimensionality of the Attitude Toward Homosexuality scale has been rigorously tested using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) across diverse cultural and demographic populations.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA): Initial principal component and principal axis factoring analyses conducted on the four items uniformly reveal a clean, single-factor solution. Scree plot analyses consistently show a sharp eigenvalue drop-off after the first component. The first unrotated factor typically accounts for between 65% and 78% of the total variance across items, with the second factor failing to reach the Kaiser criterion (eigenvalues substantially below 1.0). Factor loadings for all four items on the primary dimension are uniformly high, consistently ranging between .72 and .89. These findings establish that a unidimensional latent variable adequately and parsimoniously accounts for the shared variance among the items.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA): Subsequent confirmatory factor analytic studies have rigorously evaluated the single-factor measurement model against alternative multidimensional or artifact-driven models (such as models separating positive from negatively worded items). The single-factor CFA model exhibits excellent goodness-of-fit indices across large representative and student samples. Standard model fit statistics frequently yield:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) $\ge .98$
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) $\ge .97$
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) $\le .05$ (with 90% confidence intervals spanning .00 to .07)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) $\le .02$

Standardized factor loadings in CFA models are consistently robust, with all indicators loading significantly ($p < .001$) onto the target homonegativity construct. Standardized coefficients typically load as follows: affective disgust/disapproval items load between .76 and .88, while the reverse-scored naturalness and moral acceptance items load between .71 and .84. Multigroup CFA testing has also established measurement invariance—including configural, metric, and scalar invariance—across gender groups and age demographics, indicating that the four-item ATH measures the identical latent construct in an equivalent psychometric manner across men and women.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Attitude Toward Homosexuality scale is structured as follows:

• Instrument Type: Self-administered psychological assessment / quantitative attitude scale.
• Format: Pencil-and-paper or digital survey administration (e.g., Qualtrics, REDCap).
• Item Count: 4 items.
• Item Valence Architecture:
  • 2 negatively valenced items (indexing overt disapproval, condemnation, or disgust toward male homosexuality).
  • 2 positively valenced items (indexing moral acceptance, naturalness, and equality; these are reverse-scored).
• Response Scale: Typically administered using a 5-point or 7-point Likert response scale:
  • 1 = Strongly Disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Neither Agree nor Disagree (or Somewhat Disagree on 7-point scales)
  • 4 = Agree (or Somewhat Agree)
  • 5 = Strongly Agree
• Scoring Procedures:
  • Step 1: Reverse-code the two positively valenced items so that higher numeric values reflect greater hostility/prejudice (i.e., on a 5-point scale: $1 \to 5$, $2 \to 4$, $3 \to 3$, $4 \to 2$, $5 \to 1$; on a 7-point scale: $1 \to 7$, $2 \to 6$, $3 \to 5$, $4 \to 4$, $5 \to 3$, $6 \to 2$, $7 \to 1$).
  • Step 2: Compute the composite score by either summing the four item scores (yielding a range of 4–20 on a 5-point scale or 4–28 on a 7-point scale) or calculating the mean score across the four items (yielding an intuitive range of 1.00 to 5.00 or 1.00 to 7.00).
  • Interpretation: Higher aggregate scores signify elevated levels of sexual prejudice, homonegativity, and moral disapproval toward gay men. Lower aggregate scores reflect tolerant, egalitarian, and affirming attitudes toward male homosexuality.
• Administration Time: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Initial Year of Publication: The underlying Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men (ATLG) scale was first published by Gregory M. Herek in 1984 in the Journal of Sex Research, with extensive theoretical reviews and abbreviated subsets compiled in subsequent works, including Herek (1994). The four-item ATH subset has been utilized across behavioral and marketing studies since the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Permissions and Licensing: The original ATLG inventory and its derivatives are academic research instruments. Dr. Gregory M. Herek has traditionally placed the ATLG scale and its subscales in the public academic domain for non-commercial, scholarly, educational, and scientific research purposes, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is maintained. Researchers conducting non-funded academic studies, master’s theses, or doctoral dissertations may generally utilize the scale without formal licensing fees. However, researchers conducting commercial testing, proprietary market research, or corporate organizational audits should verify copyright conditions and contact the author or publisher to ensure formal compliance. Modifications to item wording or commercial syndication require explicit permission.

12. References

Herek, G. M. (1984). Beyond “homophobia”: A social psychological perspective on the attitudes of toward lesbians and gay men. Journal of Sex Research, 20(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224498409551208

Herek, G. M. (1988). Heterosexuals’ attitudes toward lesbians and gay men: Correlates and gender differences. The Journal of Sex Research, 25(4), 451–477. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224498809551476

Herek, G. M. (1994). Assessing attitudes toward lesbians and gay men: A review of empirical research with the ATLG scale. In B. Greene & G. M. Herek (Eds.), Lesbian and Gay Psychology: Theory, Research, and Clinical Applications (pp. 206–228). Sage Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483326757.n11

Herek, G. M. (2000). The psychology of sexual prejudice. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(1), 19–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00051

Herek, G. M., & McLemore, K. A. (2013). Sexual prejudice. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 309–333. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143826

Katz, D. (1960). The functional approach to the study of attitudes. Public Opinion Quarterly, 24(2), 163–204. https://doi.org/10.1086/266945

Oakenfull, G. K. (2013). What matters for gay consumers? “Authentic” LGBTQ advertising and its influence on brand advocacy. Journal of Advertising Research, 53(1), 56–68. https://doi.org/10.2501/JAR-53-1-056-068

Um, N. H. (2014). Does gay-themed advertising hurt your brand? The moderating role of consumers’ attitude toward homosexuality. Journal of Advertising Research, 54(2), 158–170. https://doi.org/10.2501/JAR-54-2-158-170

13. Items of the Scale