Major
Psychology
Anticipated Graduation Year
2022
Access Type
Open Access
Abstract
Some feel that transgender people threaten the gender binary. Motivation to defend the status quo may prompt negative trans attitudes when exposed to system threat. Personal contact may lessen the effect of threat on trans attitudes. Participants were randomly exposed to a system threat or control, then reported attitudes towards and previous level of contact with transgender people. Results show more personal contact with a trans person relates to more positive attitudes. We found no effect of threat regardless of contact level. These findings indicate the importance of personal contact on positive transgender attitudes, encouraging future initiatives to increase it.
Faculty Mentors & Instructors
Linas Mitchell, Graduate Student Mentor, Applied Social Psychology; Dr. Robyn Mallett, Faculty Mentor, Associate Professor of Psychology, Associate Provost for Academic Programs and Planning
Streaming Media
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Trans Contact Relates to More Positive Trans Attitudes
Some feel that transgender people threaten the gender binary. Motivation to defend the status quo may prompt negative trans attitudes when exposed to system threat. Personal contact may lessen the effect of threat on trans attitudes. Participants were randomly exposed to a system threat or control, then reported attitudes towards and previous level of contact with transgender people. Results show more personal contact with a trans person relates to more positive attitudes. We found no effect of threat regardless of contact level. These findings indicate the importance of personal contact on positive transgender attitudes, encouraging future initiatives to increase it.