What are the attitudes of the public towards Homosexuals?

Introduction Many people think that Hong Kong is a free and open-minded society in different aspects, such as freedom of religious, marriage, academic and speech. In fact, under this promising social phenomenon, there are many taboos and hidden rules in Hong Kong that not many people would mention about. Homosexual is one of the most controversial issues and hidden taboos in Hong Kong. Homosexual means the sexual contact between two persons of the same sex1. In this research, we are going to analyze and study how do the public think about homosexual. It is important to understand the publics attitude toward homosexuality, so that we can understand the publics view and try to create a tolerant society with no discrimination.

Problem Statement In recent years, many people advocate about freedom of sexual orientation, like homosexual and bisexual. On the other hand, there are more and more celebrity comes out to disclose their sexual orientation. This phenomenon makes Hong Kong people pay more attention on the issue of homosexual. Although Hong Kong has a Sexual Orientation Discrimination Ordinance (SODO) to protect some people in different sexual orientation and to avoid different sexual orientation by discriminatory, law cannot control what people think about homosexuals. Some people may think that homosexuals are disgusting or difficult to understand, but some people may think they are normal and they have the human right that they get the freedom of sexual orientation. The different attitudes of the public towards homosexuals may cause different social conflicts.

Objective The objectives of the research project are: To assess the public attitudes towards homosexuality; To assess the acceptance level of different backgrounds Hong Kong people about homosexuality; To assess the problem of discrimination faced by homosexuals in Hong Kong To examine the way to address the problem of discrimination faced by homosexuals in Hong Kong.

Hypothesis It is expected that the awareness, acceptance level as well as the attitudes of the public towards the homosexuals are related to the respondents demographic background. a) The interviewees education level and acceptance level of homosexuality are direct proportion. (highter educational level, aware more, trend to have a positive attitudes, acceptance level is highter) b) The interviewees age and acceptance level of homosexuality are inverse proportion. (olrder the respondents , aware less, trend to have a negative attitudes, acceptance level is lower) c) The interviewees religious belief (respondents who have religious

belief esp. the Christians trend to have negative attitudes and lower acceptance level while those have no religious belief hold an open attitudes and acceptance level is higher) Qestionnaire + religious belief

Methodology In this part, the following topics will be included: research design, population and sample, Conceptulization and Operationalization.

Research Design A survey study will be conducted with the aims to assess the awareness, attitudes, acceptance level of the public towards Homosexuals and assess the problem of discrimination faced by homosexuals as well as addressing ways to the problem. Questionnaires will be conducted to collect quantitative data.

Population and Sample

Since our research is aimed to know about the attitudes of public in different range of age towards homosexuals and the attitudes towards homosexual will be influenced personal background, such as age, education level, therefore we will use a stratified sampling to select people to do the questionnaire.Stratified sampling is one kind of probability sampling which will group a population into homogeneous group or strata before sampling in order to improve the representativeness in term of stratification variables and it will reduce sampling error in the research. In this case, we will group a population in Hong Kong into different range of age, and then stratified sampling will be drawn from the list of people in each range of age to do the questionnaire. Using a table of random numbers, the names of individuals will be selected from each range of ageuntil a minimum of 150 people is obtained.It is hoped that at least 100 people from each range of age will complete the questionnaires.

Conceptulization

The term homosexuality was early introduced by German psychologist, Karoly Maria Benkert in late 19th century and defined as the sex contact between two persons with same sex. In that time, homosexual regarded as the same-sex attraction and sexual behavior as symptoms of mental disorders or moral deficiency. At that time, people were divide homosexuality as an ill and abnormal. In 1973, American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association remove the homosexual behavior from disease classification system and defined as the whether sexual, psychological, emotional, and social interest, a person target on other person with same sex and such interest are not from the outside overt behavior. In fact, it is common to hear the term of gay and lesbian, these two terms are also refer to homosexual but in a less negative implication. Gay describes the homosexual between male while lesbian describes homosexual between female. In our research, we set our research target is homosexual no matter is gay or lesbian, the people who have desire in behavior or emotion limited in same sex person are including in our definition of homosexual. Many psychologists had a history of "attitude" under the definition hereby are listed below: The attitude of a particular person, thing, or was a more lasting or widespread positive or negative feeling (Bem, 1970; Insko & Schopler, 1972; Oskamp, 1977) or individuals of a particular attitude object held by the evaluation of sensory, this attitude of the object can be any close members of society has the connotation of empirical facts, such as people, events, objects, system, and virtually any aspect of the social world (Fazio & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 1994). In order to find out the attitude of people how to treat the homosexuals, it is too broad to determine the attitude of people. Thus, there are some expert and literature reference about the attitude of the public toward homosexual. In the latest NORC project of University of Chicago, the unacceptable of American towards homosexual decrease from 80% to 44% in 1973 to 2010, it shows that people are more willing to accept the homosexual and think it can be tolerate, and that project director Smith claim the there are still have some people prejudice homosexual in both working situation and family. Many sex experts reckon that the public always seen homosexual as the abnormal and treat them with colored glasses, it exist the unequal for the homosexuals in the society. People always think they are normal then the homosexual. Kate.Bornstein who is the gender theorist claim peoples attitude is almost influenced by their own religion, tradition background and knowledge, and sometimes can be reflected by their action and interact with homosexual. For example, Christians regard homosexual is unacceptable, and sometime they are not willing to relate with them. Also, when it comes to a family condition, the parents will disappointed and despair of their children become

homosexual. She also claim that sometime in working condition, homosexual disclose their sexual orientation almost will be label and difficult to move to upper position and promotion, they were isolated by the same sex peer or colleagues.

Operationalization
Operationalization as a measuring instrument by means of which it is possible to obtain accurate data about specific phenomena. In order to ascertain the public attitudes towards homosexuals in the society,we will set up a questionnaire to collect the data about the attitudes of public in different range of age towards homosexual. The questionnaire will be divided into six sections in order to let people understand the research purpose clearly and answer the questions easily. Different section will ask different aspect of questions that all related topeoples attitudes or opinions towards homosexual.The first section is designed to ask peoples awareness of homosexuals. Through this section, it can make us know that the level of Hong Kong people aware or understand homosexual. The second section aims to ask peoples acceptance level of homosexual. In this section it can show the acceptance level of homosexual of public whether is high or low. The third section can make us know that peoples awareness of the discriminationsof homosexual they are faced. The four section is designed to ask peoples opinion in the ways to address the problem of discrimination faced by homosexuals. The questions in the five section is related to personal attitudes towards homosexuals. The last section is the demographics of respondents which is important for us to analyze the survey results.

In order to operationalize the attitudes of public towards homosexuals, we set up the questions in questionnaire by adding the score to some questions. The total range of score from 1 to 5. The lower score implies people have high acceptance level towards

homosexual. On the contrary, the higher score means people have negative attitudes towards homosexual. Taking the questions Do you accept working with homosexuals?, Do you accept making friend with homosexual?, Do you accept your family member is a homosexual? in section B as an example. If the respondents choose the score 1 to 2 in these three questions, the lower score will show them have high acceptance level and positive attitudes towards homosexuals. Finally, we will use a total score of all questions from several sections to determine respondents overall attitudes towards homosexuals.

Data Analysis methods

Independent Variable (or moderator variables) The independent variable in this study are age, educational level and religious belief. Dependent Variable The dependent variable in this study are level of awareness, attitude of respondents, acceptance level of Homosexuals. Computer Softwares Computer software programs will be use for data analysis. 1.Quantitative data will be analyzed by the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). 2.The demographic characteristics of the respondents will be illustrated by Descriptive statistics. 3. The Chi-squared test will be used to determine whether a relationship

between 2 variables in this research study is likely to reflect a true association between these 2 variables in the population. (http://hsc.uwe.ac.uk/dataanalysis/quantInfAssChi.asp)
Reliability refers to the consistency or reproducibility of a measure. If a measure is reliable, it will agree with itself. Test-Retest Method Test-retest is a statistical method used to examine how reliable a test is: A test is performed twice, e.g. The same test will be given to the same group of people . If the test is reliable , then their score will be the same. However , if not , that means there should be something wrong in the test or the group. This method can used to ensure the reliability of the test. In our research , we would like to distribute our questionnaire to our interviewee twice so as to ensure that the result of it is reliable for us to do the further study. The first time we will invite them to do it together in a room and the second time we will send the questionnaire to them via e-mail so as to guarantee our reliability of the data. Split-Half Method Split half reliability reflects the correlations between two halves of an instrument. The estimates could vary depending on how the items in the measure are split into two halves. The technique of splitting halves is the most basic method for checking internal consistency when measures contain a large number of items. In the split-half method the researcher may take the results obtained from one half of the scale items (e.g. odd-numbered items) and check them against the results from the other half of the items (e.g. even numbered items). The high correlation tells us there is similarity (or homogeneity) among its items. Established Measures One way to increase the reliability a the questionnaire is to use a wellestablished measure that has demonstrated reliability. Many of the measures in the survey are established measures that have demonstrated fairly high reliability. For instance the scale index that widely being used in different questionnaire.

Reliability of Research Workers We will provide guidelines and training to our researcher workers ,for example, a guideline will be issued to every workers before they start the work. It aims to ensure they follow the instruction so as to guarantee the reliability.

Validity Three criteria will be addressed to improve validity. Face validity A pilot survey will be conducted among 50 respondents to check if questions or terms will be unclear or misleading to them. The results of the pilot survey will be reviewed, so that adjustment is allowed before the publication. Content validity Expert opinions, literature searches, and pretest open-ended questions will help providing better coverage of the topic and improving the content validity. Construct validity Confirmatory factor analysis will be used to explore how individual survey items contribute to an overall construct measurement.

References Appendix: the questionnaire

Handbook of Psychological Testing: Second Edition

Paul Kline