The effects of social contact with a lesbian person on the attitude change toward homosexuality in Turkey

N. Sakalli, O. Ugurlu

The study examined whether we could observe an attitude change in heterosexual participants introduced to a lesbian person. Eighty-nine undergraduate students from Middle East Technical University (METU) received a Turkish version of Hudson and Ricketts_ scale about "Attitudes toward Homosexuals" during a pre-testing session. Fifty-four students who didn_t have any social contact with homosexuals were chosen for the present study. Forty-five days after the pre-testing, heterosexual participants were randomly assigned either to experimental (social contact with a lesbian person) or to control (no contact with a lesbian) conditions. Participants in the experimental condition were introduced to a lesbian in a classroom situation. The lesbian person gave information about herself and answered the questions of heterosexual students. After that, participants in both experimental and control conditions received Hudson and Ricketts_ scale again. Results demonstrated that there was a significant difference between the means of pre-test and of post-test in the experimental condition.[Copies are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Center. The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580, USA]