Impact of Family Environment on Future Mental Health Professionals' Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men

This study explored the relationship between dimensions of functioning in the family of origin of graduate students in helping profession programs and their attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. One hundred forty-three participants completed the Family Environment Scale (FES-R: Moos & Moos, 1986 Moos, R. H. and Moos, B. S. 1986. Family Environment Scale, 2nd, Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press. Google Scholar), the Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men scale (ATLG: Herek, 1994 Herek, G. M. 1994. “Assessing attitudes toward lesbians and gay men: A review of empirical research with the ATLG scale”. In Lesbian and gay psychology: Theory, research, and clinical applications, Edited by: Greene, B. and Herek, G.M. 206–224. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Crossref , Google Scholar), and demographic questions. Results suggest that three family dimensions (conflict, intellectual-cultural orientation, and moral-religious emphasis) significantly predicted attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. The results also revealed that younger students held more negative attitudes toward lesbians and gay men than their older peers. Implications for educators, researchers, and practitioners are discussed.