Explicit and Implicit Attitudes toward Gay Men in a University Sample in Chile

Summary

The article reports Chilean college students’ implicit attitudes toward homosexual men (N = 117), measured through the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The study compared young men and women implicit assessments with those obtained with an explicit measure, the Attitude toward Gay Men (ATG) Scale. Men showed more unfavorable implicit attitudes toward homosexuals than women. However, these differences were not observed when measuring implicit attitudes, showing that both men and women had negative implicit attitude toward homosexual men. These results suggest that the apparent decrease in prejudice revealed in self-reports measures, or associated with certain demographic groups, could conceal the fact that automatic attitudes might not have changed.