National Survey of Sexual Health & Behavior: Bisexualities Indiana Attitudes Scale

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Brian Dodge, Indiana University; Debby Herbenick, Indiana University; Tsung-Chieh (Jane) Fu, Indiana University

Version: View help for Version V1

Version Title: View help for Version Title 1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
NSSHB-2015-BIAS-Analyses.do	text/plain	7.9 KB	09/20/2016 07:27:AM
NSSHB-2015-BIAS-Data.dta	application/x-stata	105.8 KB	09/20/2016 07:27:AM

Project Citation:

Dodge, Brian, Herbenick, Debby, and Fu, Tsung-Chieh (Jane). National Survey of Sexual Health & Behavior: Bisexualities Indiana Attitudes Scale. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2016-09-20. https://doi.org/10.3886/E100265V1

Project Description

Summary: As bisexual individuals in the United States (U.S.) face significant health disparities, researchers have posited that these differences may be fueled, at least in part, by negative attitudes, prejudice, stigma, and discrimination toward bisexual individuals from heterosexual and gay/lesbian individuals. Previous studies of individual and social attitudes toward bisexual men and women have been conducted almost exclusively with convenience samples, with limited generalizability to the broader U.S. population. Our study provides an assessment of attitudes toward bisexual men and women among a nationally representative sample of heterosexual, gay, lesbian, and “other”-identified adults in the U.S. Data were collected from the 2015 National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior (NSSHB), via an online questionnaire with a probability sample of adults (18 and over) from throughout the U.S. We included two modified 5-item versions of the Bisexualities: Indiana Attitudes Scale (BIAS), validated sub-scales that were developed to measure attitudes toward bisexual men and women. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, gamma regression, and paired t-tests. Gender, sexual identity, age, race/ethnicity, income, and educational attainment were all significantly associated with participants' attitudes toward bisexual individuals. In terms of responses to individual scale items, participants were most likely to “neither agree nor disagree” with attitudinal statements. Across sexual identities, self-identified "other" participants reported the most positive attitudes, while heterosexual male participants reported the least positive attitudes. Overall, attitudes toward bisexual men were significantly less positive than toward bisexual women across identities. As in previous research on convenience samples, we found a wide range of demographic characteristics were related with attitudes toward bisexual individuals in our nationally-representative study of heterosexual, gay/lesbian, and "other"-identified adults in the U.S. Additionally, as in previous studies, gender emerged as a significant characteristic; female participants’ attitudes were more positive than male participants’ attitudes, and all participants’ attitudes were generally more positive toward bisexual women than bisexual men. While population data suggest a marked shift in more positive attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women in the general population of the U.S., the largest proportions of participants in our study reported a relative lack of agreement or disagreement with the affective-evaluative statements in the BIAS scales. Findings document the absence of positive attitudes toward bisexual individuals among the general population of adults in the U.S. Our findings highlight the need for developing intervention approaches to promote more positive attitudes toward bisexual individuals, targeted toward not only heterosexual and but also gay/lesbian individuals and communities.

Funding Sources: Church & Dwight, Co., Inc.; Indiana University

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: bisexual; attitudes; nationally representative sample

Geographic Coverage: United States

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Published Versions

V1 [2016-09-20]

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