Ten years ago, the Daily Beast published an article headlined Are Homophobes Mentally Ill? Science Says ‘Maybe’:
According to findings recently published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, if you harbor homophobic views it’s likely you may also endorse some of the following dysfunctions: misogynism, psychoticism, uber-religiosity, immature coping mechanisms, [discomfort] with close relationships, and above-average levels of anger, aggression, hostility, and hyper-masculinity.
Of the nine claimed associations, seven are false. In fact, five of the listed variables do not exist in the study. Here are the study results:
[chart in post]
Look at the significance column on the right. Psychoticism and immature coping style were the only true effects. At least in the desired direction – as you can see, neurotic coping style and depression were negatively correlated with “homophobia”, meaning that the higher people were in “homophobia” the less depressed and neurotic they were. Daily Beast withheld these two findings.
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