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Psychologists' attitudes and clinical communication towards lesbians and gay men

Research suggests that people may hold positive explicit attitudes whilst holding negative implicit attitudes towards Lesbian and Gay (LG) people. While this seems evident amongst the general population, a previous systematic review (e.g. Boysen, 2009) only identified one study investigating explicit and implicit attitudes towards LG identities amongst counsellors. There are no similar systematic reviews using samples of psychologists, so this review aims to bridge that gap by conducting an analysis on studies completed between January 1990 and May 2013. In this review were included studies that: a) investigated attitudes of psychologists or psychologists-in-training towards LG people; b) included original data and findings; c) included comparison groups; and d) had been carried out in countries where homosexuality is not criminalised and where there is anti-homophobia legislation currently in place. Of the initial 933 studies identified, 18 met the main inclusion criteria. Designs were diverse and used a range of attitude measures. Only one study investigated implicit attitudes. Despite the diverse range of designs and measures it appears that positive attitudes to LG people may be conditional upon several factors, including gender, religiosity, socialisation, training, and level of education of psychologists. Training courses can potentially address such needs, but these need to be designed specifically to address LG topics, since general training on diversity topics may not promote positive implicit attitudes to LG people.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:592813
Date January 2013
CreatorsMontenegro, Jose Miguel Pinto de Mendonca
ContributorsReilly, James; Fletcher, Ian
PublisherUniversity of Liverpool
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/13253/

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