Sexual prejudice occurs when one makes automatic or intentional negative evaluations of sexual minority (i.e., non-heterosexual) individuals due to their actual or perceived sexual orientation. The current study sought to extend the extant literature on sexual prejudice by using an experimental design to concurrently examine factors associated with two of the most prominent models of sexual prejudice: the personality model of homophobia and the negative affective response model of homophobia. Although the extant literature often portrays them as competing models, this study examined whether integrating elements from both models would create a more comprehensive, state-trait model of sexual prejudice that would better predict endorsement of anti-gay attitudes and negative reactions to lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) stimuli. Participants (n = 350) were invited to participate in a two-part online study that examined the relationships among two individual-level personality factors (i.e., right-wing authoritarianism [RWA] and social dominance orientation [SDO]), negative affect (i.e., fear, hostility, guilt, and cognitive and somatic symptoms of anxiety), and exposure to gay male video stimuli. This study utilized video clips drawn from mainstream news media stories about gay men; the videos were empirically selected during a pilot study that examined the reactions of participants (n = 147) who were high on either RWA or SDO to six potential videos about gay men. Results from the full study indicated that double high participants (i.e., individuals who were simultaneously high on RWA and SDO) and participants who were high on RWA alone endorsed greater levels of sexual prejudice than participants low on both RWA and SDO; participants who were high on SDO alone did not endorse more sexually prejudiced attitudes. However, neither sexual prejudice nor emotion regulation significantly moderated the relationship between exposure to gay male material and negative affective response. Finally, although the results indicated that the relationship between personality and sexual prejudice was significant in the integrated state-trait model, the simplified model (i.e., the model that did not include the categorical personality variable as a predictor) was an overall better fit for the data. Nonetheless, because sexual prejudice can have negative implications for both sexual minority individuals and those who hold these prejudiced attitudes, it is imperative that research continues to explore which factors contribute to stigma, prejudiced attitudes, and discrimination against sexual minority individuals.
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