Taking pride from cultures of shame: The influence of cultural values on the development of internalised attitudes towards same-sex attraction in gay men across cultures

Abstract

Theoretically, internalised homonegativity (IH-) has been studied by mainstream and lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) psychology as an ill-defined individual difference investigated over several paradigms. Historically, psychology’s heterosexist bias has focussed on IH- as a pathologising construct for gay men, without considering how homopositive attitudes could be internalised. Moreover, cross-cultural research investigating gay men’s IH- is scant, and these few studies have not controlled for cultural values. Therefore, this thesis aims to address psychology’s heterosexism by introducing internalised homopositivity (IH+) alongside IH-, within a psycho-socio-cognitive theory of internalised attitudes towards samesex attraction (IASSA). Over three studies with multinational samples, crosssectional designs utilising hierarchical linear regressions (HLR) investigated the relationships between cultural values systems, parental acceptance-rejection, attachment styles and IASSA. 2,276 men sexually attracted to men were volunteer sampled via social media from Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States. Each study’s participants completed questionnaire batteries. Study 1 found that conservatism was positively associated with IH- while egalitarianism was negatively associated. Study 2 revealed maternal acceptance was positively associated with IH-, while maternal rejection and paternal acceptance/rejection were not. Study 3 initially found English-speaking cross-cultural validity via exploratory factor analysis for IH+. Subsequent HLR analyses then evidenced high paternal religiosity moderated a negative association between avoidant attachment and IH+; avoidant attachment to mothers was negatively associated with IH+; and cultural masculinity was negatively associated with IH- for both parents across anxious/avoidant attachments. These unexpected results warrant further investigation, particularly the positive association between maternal acceptance and IH- and the negative association between cultural masculinity and IH-. Additionally, the IASSAQ supports future research with a greater unified and less pathologising psycho-social-cognitive IASSA model. Moreover, cross-cultural psychology can be reconciled with LGBTQ psychology. When applied, the IASSA model could help psychological practitioners support ashamed gay men to discover pride.