Development of the heteronormative attitudes and beliefs scale

Heteronormativity has been defined as the enforced compliance with culturally determined heterosexual roles and assumptions about heterosexuality as ‘natural’ or ‘normal’. Cross-disciplinary theoretical literature suggests that heteronormativity may be linked to a range of attitudes, social phenomena and outcomes and that it may be a fundamental prerequisite for institutional and interpersonal manifestations of heterosexism. Yet, this construct is in need of empirical elaboration. Operationalising heteronormativity along two dimensions (essential, binary beliefs about sex and gender and normative behavioural attitudes), this article describes initial development of the Heteronormative Attitudes and Beliefs Scale. Across three studies, this newly developed measure has demonstrated an adequately supported two-factor model, expected group differences (e.g., higher scores among men vs. women and among heterosexual vs. sexual minority participants) and significant correlations with relevant personality and attitudinal variables such as right-wing authoritarianism, openness to experience (OE), attitudes towards sexual minorities and tolerance of ambiguity. In addition to establishing further construct validity and replication of the observed factor structure with more racially, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse samples, future research could more closely examine the potential causes, consequences and malleability of heteronormativity.