Modern Homonegativity Scale

Abstract

The Modern Homonegativity Scale (MHS), developed by Melanie A. Morrison and Todd G. Morrison in 2002, is a concise psychological measure engineered to evaluate contemporary negative attitudes specifically targeting gay men and lesbian women. Unlike traditional measures of Homonegativity that focus on moral or religious objections, the MHS assesses subtle, modern forms of prejudice.

The scale was developed through rigorous methodology, starting with a 50-item version and ultimately being reduced to a highly reliable 12-item instrument following Principal components analysis and reliability assessments. The MHS is structured into two parallel forms: MHS-G, which focuses on attitudes toward gay men, and MHS-L, which focuses on attitudes toward lesbian women. Both forms have demonstrated strong psychometric properties and conceptual distinctiveness from older measures of prejudice.

Keywords

Modern Homonegativity, MHS, Modern Prejudice, Sexual Orientation Bias, Gay Men, Lesbian Women, Homonegativity, Social Attitudes, Discrimination

Authors

Melanie A. Morrison, Todd G. Morrison

Purpose

The primary purpose of the MHS is to provide a brief yet reliable measure for assessing contemporary, non-traditional forms of negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women. The scale specifically targets objections rooted in the belief that these groups are demanding unnecessary changes to the social status quo or are responsible for their own marginalization.

The measure is designed to capture subtle forms of prejudice that may not be apparent when using scales focused solely on blatant or moralistic objections. This makes the MHS particularly useful in research aiming to distinguish between “old-fashioned” and “modern” prejudice constructs, aligning conceptually with measures like Modern racism and modern sexism.

Construct

The MHS measures Modern Homonegativity, a construct defined by three core belief clusters that underpin negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women:

• Objections to perceived illegitimate demands for changes to the status quo (e.g., rights to legally marry or adopt children).
• The conviction that discrimination against homosexual individuals is a phenomenon of the past.
• The belief that gay men and lesbian women exaggerate the importance of their sexual orientation, thereby preventing their assimilation into mainstream culture and causing their own marginalization (e.g., through participation in “Gay Pride” events).

The scale explicitly avoids items related to traditional moral or religious disapproval, focusing instead on themes of perceived unfair demands, denial of continuing discrimination, and opposition to the public display of sexual minority identity. The MHS is designed to be conceptually distinct from measures of “old-fashioned” Homonegativity.

Validity

Construct validity for the MHS has been extensively demonstrated across diverse samples, including Canadian, American, and Irish university students, and nonstudent populations. Scores on the MHS correlate significantly and in hypothesized directions with several theoretically linked constructs, confirming its measurement accuracy.

• Convergent Validity: Positive correlations have been established between modern homonegativity and measures of political conservatism, religious behavior and fundamentalism, social dominance, patriotism, nationalism, Modern racism, modern and neosexism, anti-fat attitudes, and prejudice toward Aboriginal men and women.
• Divergent Validity: Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) have shown that MHS items load onto a distinct factor separate from items measuring old-fashioned homonegativity, providing strong evidence of divergent validity.
• Behavioral Validity: Behavioral studies offered additional Construct validity, showing significant differences between high- and low-scoring participants in terms of social distancing from a lesbian or gay individual and support for a gay male political candidate.
• Social Desirability: Responses to the MHS do not appear to be contaminated by social desirability bias, reinforcing the validity of the measure in capturing underlying prejudiced attitudes.

Reliability

The MHS exhibits consistently high internal consistency across both student and nonstudent populations, confirming its reliability as a psychological instrument. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients reported for the 12-item parallel forms are consistently high, exceeding .90 in the initial validation study (Morrison & Morrison, 2002).

Reported alpha coefficients for the MHS forms using various samples include:

• MHS-G (Gay Men): Alpha coefficients have consistently ranged from .81 to .95.
• MHS-L (Lesbian Women): Alpha coefficients have consistently ranged from .84 to .91.

Factor Analysis

The scale development began with a 50-item pool, which was reduced to the final 12-item version through specific item reduction criteria and Principal components analysis. Factor analyses conducted on the final 12-item MHS indicated that the scale is unidimensional—it measures a single underlying construct of modern homonegativity.

A series of confirmatory factor analyses provided evidence of divergent validity by testing a two-factor model, where MHS items were separated from items belonging to measures of old-fashioned homonegativity. The fit statistics for this two-factor model were superior to those obtained for a single-factor model, confirming that modern homonegativity is empirically and conceptually distinct from older prejudice forms.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report attitude scale

Format: Paper-and-pencil or digital survey format, consisting of 12 items for each parallel form (MHS-G and MHS-L).

Language Available: English (Validated with Canadian, American, and Irish samples)

Population Group: General population (students and nonstudents)

Age Group: Adolescents and Adults (Typically used with university/college students, but suitable for older populations)

Population Details: The measure was developed using input from sexual minority organizations and academic faculty. It has been successfully validated across Canadian, American, and Irish university student samples, as well as nonstudent samples.

Test Methodology: Participants report their level of agreement or disagreement with statements. A 5-point Likert response format is commonly used (1=Strongly Disagree to 5=Strongly Agree), although a 7-point Likert-type scale has also been used with consistent psychometric properties. Completion time is typically less than 5 minutes.

Keywords

Prejudice Measurement, Social Psychology, Sexual Minorities, Attitudes, Psychometrics, Likert response format, Modern Prejudice

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source content.

Affiliation Email addresses: [email protected]

Correspondence Address: Melanie A. Morrison, Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan, 9 Campus Drive, 184 Arts Bldg., Saskatoon, SK, Canada S7N 5A5

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions: The MHS is available for use by any individual conducting research in accordance with the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles for Psychologists. Researchers may use the MHS without obtaining explicit permission from the authors.

Fee: No fee information provided; implied free for academic research use.

Test Year: 2002 (Year of initial development and validation publication).

Reference’s

• Morrison, M. A., & Morrison, T. G. (2002). Development and validation of a scale measuring modern prejudice toward gay men and lesbian women. Journal of Homosexuality, 43, 15–37.
• Morrison, M. A., & Morrison, T. G. (2009). Sexual orientation bias toward gay men and lesbian women: Modern homonegative attitudes and their association with discriminatory behavioural intentions. Manuscript submitted for publication.
• Morrison, M. A., Morrison, T. G., & Franklin, R. (2009). Modern and old- fashioned homonegativity among samples of Canadian and American university students. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40, 523– 542.
• Morrison, M. A., Morrison, T. G., Harriman, R. L., & Jewell, L. M. (2008). Old-fashioned and modern prejudice toward Aboriginals in Canada. In M. A. Morrison & T. G. Morrison (Eds.), The Psychology of Modern Prejudice (pp. 277–306). New York: Nova Science.
• Morrison, T. G., Kenny, P., & Harrington, A. (2005). Modern prejudice toward gay men and lesbian women: Assessing the viability of a measure of modern homonegative attitudes with an Irish context. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 131, 219–250.
• Morrison, T. G., Parriag, A. V., & Morrison, M. A. (1999). The psychometric properties of the Homonegativity Scale. Journal of Homosexuality, 37, 111–126.

Items of the Modern Homonegativity Scale

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

MHS-G (Gay Men)

1. Gay men have all the rights they need.*
2. Gay men have become far too confrontational in their demand for equal rights.*
3. Gay men should stop shoving their lifestyle down other people’s throats.*
4. Gay men seem to focus on the ways in which they differ from heterosexuals, and ignore the ways in which they are similar.*
5. Gay men who are “out of the closet” should be admired for their courage.* [R]
6. Many gay men use their sexual orientation so that they can obtain special rights and privileges.*
7. Gay men no longer need to protest for equal rights.*
8. In today’s tough economic times, Canadians’ tax dollars shouldn’t be used to support gay men’s organizations.*
9. The notion of universities providing degrees in gay and lesbian studies is ridiculous.
10. Gay men should stop complaining about the way they are treated in society, and simply get on with their lives.
11. Celebrations such as “Gay Pride Day” are ridiculous because they assume that an individual’s sexual orientation should constitute a source of pride.
12. If gay men want to be treated like everyone else, then they need to stop making such a fuss about their sexuality/culture.

MHS-L (Lesbian Women)

1. The notion of universities providing degrees in gay and lesbian studies is ridiculous.*
2. Celebrations such as “Gay Pride Day” are ridiculous because they assume that an individual’s sexual orientation should constitute a source of pride.*
3. Lesbian women should stop shoving their lifestyle down other people’s throats.*
4. Lesbian women seem to focus on the ways in which they differ from heterosexuals, and ignore the ways in which they are the same.*
5. Many lesbian women use their sexual orientation so that they can obtain special rights and privileges.*
6. Lesbian women have become far too confrontational in their demand for equal rights.*
7. Lesbian women who are “out of the closet” should be admired for their courage.* [R]
8. In today’s tough economic times, Canadians’ tax dollars shouldn’t be used to support lesbian organizations.*
9. If lesbians want to be treated like everyone else, then they need to stop making such a fuss about their sexuality/culture.*
10. Lesbian women should stop complaining about the way they are treated in society, and simply get on with their lives.*
11. Lesbian women no longer need to protest for equal rights.
12. Lesbian women have all the rights they need.

Note: [R] = Item requires reverse scoring. If using the invariant items only, standardized scores are recommended (total MHS-L score divided by 10 and total MHS-G score divided by 8). Items marked with * were identified as invariant between Canadian and American samples of university students (M. A. Morrison et al., 2009).