The Effects of a Gay and Lesbian Speaker Panel on College Students' Attitudes and Behaviors: The Importance of Context Effects

The current study investigated the effect of a gay and lesbian speaker panel presentation on the attitudes and behaviors of an undergraduate population. In order to control for context effects, subjects were led to believe that they were participating in two, unrelated, research projects. Contrary to the results obtained in previous investigations that have not controlled for context effects, these findings suggest that this type of intervention does not significantly alter intolerant attitudes and behaviors. Most respondents started out as moderately homophobic, and then simply remained that way, regardless of whether they had been exposed to the panel discussion.