Emotional Responses to Homosexual Art Among Heterosexual Adults

Abstract

Acceptance towards homosexuality has decreased among adolescents, while discrimination and violence have increased in Europe. Can art improve this negative trend? To investigate this hypothesis, the current research examined to what extend exposure to an art exhibition depicting homosexual couples influenced the emotions heterosexual Dutch adults. One hundred and thirteen heterosexual participants were asked to report their positive and negative emotions before and after viewing two portraits depicting affectionate homosexual couples, accompanied with a short story about them, using the Discrete Emotions Questionnaire (DEQ). Furthermore, the study explored the moderating effect of pre-existing attitudes toward homosexual couples. While a slight increase in negative emotional responses was observed, this effect disappeared when controlling for variables such as political ideology and racism. Pre-existing attitudes toward homosexuality did not significantly moderate emotional responses. These findings suggest that emotional responses to homosexual individuals may be harder to change, as they appear to be more deeply rooted in fundamental sociopsychological factors, like political beliefs. Conversely, a more nuanced analysis of emotional responses indicated that emotional reactions did not conform to binary classifications of positive or negative, which potentially obscured significant findings. Future research should explore specific emotional responses and research how real-life art exhibitions may elicit emotional responses, and in turn social change.