title: The Political Divide Over Same-Sex Marriage: Mating Strategies in Conflict?
abstract: Although support for same-sex marriage has grown dramatically over the past decade, public opinion remains markedly divided. Here, we propose that the political divide over same-sex marriage represents a deeper divide between conflicting mating strategies. Specifically, we propose that opposition to same-sex marriage can be explained in terms of (a) individual differences in short-term mating orientation and (b) mental associations between homosexuality and sexual promiscuity. We created a novel Implicit Association Test to measure mental associations between homosexuality and promiscuity. We found that mental associations between homosexuality and promiscuity, at both the implicit and the explicit levels, interacted with short-term mating orientation to predict opposition to same-sex marriage. Our model accounted for 42.3% of the variation in attitudes toward same-sex marriage, and all predictors remained robust when we controlled for potential confounds. Our results reveal the centrality of mating psychology in attitudes toward same-sex marriage.
authors.affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles david.pinsof@gmail.com.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pinsof
authors.affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles.
authors.forename: Martie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haselton
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001290:Attitude; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011057:Politics; D011639:Public Opinion; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: attitudes; evolutionary psychology; morality; open data; open materials; sex; sexual orientation; social cognition; stereotyped attitudes