Reducing Myth Endorsement Towards LGBTI+ to Tackle Prejudice Towards Gender Diversity and Sexual Orientation

The relationship between religiosity and essentialist beliefs on anti-LGBT+ prejudice has been largely investigated. These studies have shown that high religiosity, being male and having environmental essentialist beliefs enhance prejudice against LGBT+ community. Despite these findings, myths toward LGBT+’s have not yet been measured, hence one of the aims of the current study was to assess myth endorsement to LGBT+’s. Moreover, text-based manipulation on essentialist beliefs has been used widely in the literature, however, the effect of other manipulation methods on essentialist beliefs to reduce myth endorsement and anti-LGBT+ prejudice have not been assessed. The current study was the first experimental research to develop a myth scale and use video manipulations to influence essentialist beliefs. This study aimed to assess the role of religiosity and essentialist beliefs on myth endorsement toward LGBT+ community and to determine common myths about individuals from LGBT+ community to reduce discrimination and prejudice. A sample of 112 Turkish speaking cisgender female and male 1st year university students from Eastern Mediterranean University in North Cyprus were assigned to three conditions and each group received a video recording regarding the etiology of homosexual sexual orientation. Participants in reality conditions were provided with actual literature findings regarding the etiology of homosexuality, whereas in environmental and genetic conditions, participants were provided with fictious findings regarding environmental and genetic etiology of homosexuality. Gender, as an independent variable, and attitude, as a dependent variable, were also included in the variables. It was hypothesized that participants in environmental condition would have highest myth endorsement and more negative attitude toward LGBT+’s, followed by participants in genetic and reality conditions. Participants with higher religiosity were expected to have higher myth endorsement and more negative attitude than those with lower religiosity. Also, male participants were expected to have higher myth endorsement, higher religiosity, and more negative attitude than female participants. Findings indicated significant impact of religiosity and essentialist beliefs on myth endorsement. Additionally, participants in environmental condition had higher myth endorsement than genetic. Also, participants in reality condition showed the lowest myth endorsement and negative attitude. Male participants had more myth endorsement and more negative attitudes toward LGBT+. The findings of the study are discussed in light of the literature. Keywords: Essentialist Beliefs, Religiosity, Myth Endorsement, LGBT+