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Singapore counselling service providers’ attitudes toward lesbians and gay men and its correlates
Author
Wu, Qianwei
Supervisor
Chew, Chelsea Liang Ru
Abstract
No study has investigated Singapore mental health providers’ attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. This study sought to examine Singapore mental health providers’ attitudes toward lesbians and gay men, and the relationship between attitudes toward lesbians and gay men and its predictors, while controlling for socially desirable responding. In particular, three approaches, namely, personality, social psychology, and cognitive, were used to explain attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. This was in contrast to the usual method of using one approach or two approaches, namely, personality or/and social psychology. A convenience sample of 176 Singapore counselling service providers took part in an online or a paper survey. The results of this study indicated that most held neutral attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. Item analysis revealed that this position could be loosely termed as “love the sinner, hate the sin”. Unsurprisingly, heterosexuals reported more negative attitudes toward lesbians and gay men than those who were non-heterosexuals. Only social psychology and cognitive variables made statistically significant additional contributions, in terms of additional variance in attitudes toward lesbians and gay men explained. Negative attitudes toward lesbians and gay men could be predicted by six variables, in descending order in terms of predictive power, namely, one who: (i) is Muslim or Christian as compared to without a religion (social psychology - religion), (ii) has less knowledge about homosexuality (cognitive), (iii) is Chinese as compared to Indian (social psychology - ethnicity), (iv) is aged 50 and above as compared to less than 29 (social psychology - age group), (v) identifies more with one’s religion (social psychology - identification with religion), and (vi) is less open (personality). These suggest that sexual prejudice is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that is better explained by an integrative approach. Implications for practice were discussed.
Date Issued
2014
Call Number
HQ75.16.S55 Wu
Date Submitted
2014