Actitudes homofóbicas y lesbofóbicas en estudiantes de Psicología General de la Universidad de Cuenca

Abstract

Homophobia constitutes any act of aversion, which includes rejection and / or fear of gay and lesbian people. In Latin America, manifestations of this phenomenon have been identified in university environments, negatively impacting the population of homosexual students (Rosales, 2016). The objective of this research was to describe the homophobic and lesbophobic attitudes present in the students of the first cycle of the General Psychology Career at the University of Cuenca. It was a descriptive cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach involving 147 students. Sociodemographic variables were explored through a data sheet designed for this study and the "Modern Homophobia Scale (MHS-G)" was applied by Raja and Stokes (1998), validated in Colombia by Rodríguez et al. (2013). In a larger percentage of the student population it is shown that there are no homophobic attitudes towards gays and lesbians but as relevant results were obtained that among the dimensions included in the instrument to define homophobic and lesbophobic attitudes, it was identified that "personal discomfort and institutional homophobia" are the most representative among the students. The women participating in the study turned out to be more lesbophobic than the men. The majority of self-defined heterosexual students show an ‘Indifferent Attitude’ towards homophobia. A finding of this study is the high percentage of students with ‘Attitude indifferent’ to homophobia oriented to both gays and lesbians.