Same-sex marriage legalization associated with reduced implicit and explicit anti-gay bias

The current research tested whether the passing of government legislation, signaling the prevailing attitudes of the local majority, was associated with changes in citizens’ attitudes. Specifically, with ~1 million responses over a 11-year window, we test whether state-by-state same-sex marriage legislation was associated with decreases in anti-gay implicit and explicit bias. Results across five operationalizations consistently provide support for this possibility. Both implicit and explicit bias were decreasing prior to same-sex marriage legalization, but decreased at a sharper rate following legalization. Moderating this effect was whether states passed legislation locally. While states passing state-level legislation experienced a greater decrease in bias following legislation, states that never passed local legislation demonstrated increased anti-gay bias following federal legalization. Our work highlights how government legislation can inform individuals’ attitudes, even when these attitudes may be deeply entrenched, and socially and politically volatile.

本研究旨在探讨政府立法的通过，作为当地多数人主流态度的信号，是否与公民态度的改变相关联。具体而言，通过对11年间约100万份响应的数据进行分析，本研究检验了各州同性婚姻立法是否与反同性的隐性和显性偏见减少有关。五个操作化的结果一致支持这一可能性。在同性婚姻合法化之前，隐性和显性偏见已经开始下降，但在合法化之后下降速度更为显著。这一效应的调节因素是各州是否通过了地方性立法。尽管通过州级立法的州在立法后偏见减少幅度更大，但从未通过地方性立法的州在联邦合法化后反同性偏见却有所增加。本研究凸显了政府立法如何影响个人态度，即便这些态度可能根深蒂固，且在社会政治上充满动荡之时。