{"id":70,"date":"2021-09-19T15:46:50","date_gmt":"2021-09-19T22:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/shakiba\/?p=70"},"modified":"2021-09-19T16:12:49","modified_gmt":"2021-09-19T23:12:49","slug":"a-study-into-the-relationship-between-ethnic-minorities-and-lgbt-perceptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/shakiba\/2021\/09\/19\/a-study-into-the-relationship-between-ethnic-minorities-and-lgbt-perceptions\/","title":{"rendered":"A STUDY INTO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ETHNIC MINORITIES AND LGBT PERCEPTIONS"},"content":{"rendered":"

This report has been prepared in order to assess the potential relationship between being an ethnic\u00a0 minority and negative perceptions of the LGBT community. The \u201cAmerican National Election Study\u201d\u00a0 dataset was utilized in order to produce this statistical report using measures from 2016. The primary\u00a0 independent variable, ethnic minority, is operationalized through a binary self-identification of ethnic\u00a0 minority status (vismin). Additionally, the dependent variable is perceptions of the LGBT community –\u00a0 quantified by an index comprising of feeling thermometers towards gay\/lesbians and transgender people\u00a0 (ftlgbt).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Minority groups often hold stronger cultural values and beliefs in comparison to their native white counterparts. More often than not, established traditional values tend to be culturally embedded in\u00a0 ethnic belief systems, and thus conflict with acceptance of the LGBT community. As a result, we can\u00a0 theorize that traditional principles within ethnic communities negatively impacts their perception of the\u00a0 LGBT community.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to get an accurate estimate of this relationship, it is vital to control for other possible,\u00a0 confounding variables that may alter the relationship between ethnic minority status and perceptions of\u00a0 the LGBT community. For this study, one confounding variable I controlled for was education (educ) – <\/span>1<\/span> operationalized as the highest level of formal education the respondent received. Minorities often face\u00a0 systematic racial barriers resulting in lower levels of education in comparison to their Caucasian\u00a0 counterparts. Education levels are also linked to the dependent variable, LGBT perception, as education\u00a0 exposes people to rational ways of thought. Since homophobia and transphobia are fundamentally\u00a0 irrational ideologies, an increase in education may increase tolerance towards the LGBT. Thus, decreased\u00a0 education levels among minorities, in addition to anti-LBT sentiment experienced by less educated people\u00a0 may depict false causality, and therefore must be controlled for. I also controlled for ideology, as\u00a0 measured by the respondent\u2019s placement on a Liberal to Conservative scale between 1 to 7 (lcself). A\u00a0 person\u2019s political ideology often dictate whether they support the LGBT community, therefore affecting\u00a0 our dependent variable of LGBT perceptions. In relation to the independent variable, visible minorities\u00a0 are slightly more liberal, therefore controlling for party identification avoids any suppression of our true\u00a0 results.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After controlling for these two confounding variables, I can hypothesize that <\/span>being an ethnic\u00a0 minority is associated with negative perceptions of the LGBT community. <\/span><\/i>Prior to conducting research, it\u00a0 is useful to describe our key variables, their measures and scales. An index consisting of the feeling\u00a0 thermometer towards gay\/lesbians and feeling thermometer towards transgenders measures the concept of\u00a0 my dependent variable, LGBT perceptions. By recoding and combining these variables, we create an\u00a0 index on a scale of 0 to 100 (with 100 being maximum \u201cwarmness\u201d). The primary independent variable,\u00a0 ethnic minority, is operationalized through a measure of respondents\u2019 self-identification as either White or <\/span>of other ethnicities. It should be noted that this study follows the premise that the ethnic majority is white.\u00a0 Education, the first controlled variable, is measured by the highest level of formal education respondents\u00a0 attain where 1 is no high school completion and 6 is post-grad. A limitation exists within the measure as it\u00a0 does not capture \u201clife experience\u201d but rather institutionalized education. The final measure, political\u00a0 ideology, is measured by asking respondents to place themselves on a scale of 1 to 7 where 1 \u201cVery\u00a0 Liberal\u201d and 7 is \u201cVery Conservative\u201d. The measure aims to capture where respondents lie in relation to\u00a0 the political spectrum, with the assumption that the closer they lie towards Liberal ideology, the more\u00a0 likely they will possess positive LGBT perception.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After analyzing the initial data, it was found that ethnic minorities make up 27% of respondents,\u00a0 whereas white respondents consist of the remaining 73%. It is noteworthy that a smaller sample size of\u00a0 minority data may limit the accuracy of our study. Despite this, we found that on average, respondents\u00a0 had a mean of 54 on the LGBT feeling thermometer, with a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 100 \u2013\u00a0 indicating slightly positive leaning LGBT feeling, although not significant considering our scale.\u00a0 Additionally, the standard deviation of 31 tells us that LGBT perceptions are quite polarized, and a\u00a0 histogram confirms that most respondents answered at a 0, 50 or 100 on the feeling thermometer. In\u00a0 regards to education, it is noteworthy that 34% completed high school and 57% of respondents had formal\u00a0 education past their high school diploma, thus indicating a slightly more educated sample size. Lastly, our\u00a0 mean of political ideology sits at 4 (on a scale of 1 to 7) with the highest percentage of respondents\u00a0 answer \u201cNeither Liberal or Conservative\u201d (27%). Moreover, the standard deviation of 2 indicates a fairly\u00a0 spread range of answers on a normal distribution, therefore our sample of respondents are not\u00a0 significantly leaning on either ends of the political spectrum.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After running a difference of means test for the data, we can analyze the relationship between\u00a0 ethnic minorities and LGBT perceptions. It was found that ethnic minorities, on a scale of 0 to 100, had\u00a0 an LGBT feeling thermometer of 54.7. In comparison to their white counterpart\u2019s mean of 53.2,\u00a0 minorities had a warmer LGBT feeling thermometer by 1.5. With consideration of our scale, however,\u00a0 these results deem statistically insignificant. A p-value of 0.490 tells us that we would observe a\u00a0 relationship this big or bigger in nearly 49% of samples of this size due to random chance, if there was no\u00a0 relationship between these two variables. Thus, we cannot be confident that these results are reflected in\u00a0 our population.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to control for the individual influences of each independent variable on LGBT\u00a0 perceptions, a multiple regression test was run (Appendix A). Not surprisingly, political ideology appears\u00a0 to have the largest effect on LGBT feeling thermometer. A one-point increase on the 7-point ideology\u00a0 scale (with higher values meaning more conservative) is associated with a 7.9 decrease in the LGBT\u00a0 feeling thermometer<\/span>. <\/b>That is to say, moving one point in the positive direction (remember: positive means\u00a0 towards conservative) decreases the LGBT feeling thermometer by 7.9 \u2013 a sizeable decrease considering\u00a0 our scale and therefore indicates a modest-strong relationship. The p-value of 0.0001 tells us that we <\/span>would observe a relationship this big or bigger in only 0.0001% of samples due to random chance.\u00a0 Education levels also appears to have a slightly positive effect in the predicted direction. A one-unit\u00a0 increase in education levels on a scale of 1 to 6 (with 6 being higher education), is associated with a 1.3\u00a0 increase on the LGBT feeling thermometer. The coefficient is not statistically significant in reference to\u00a0 our scale, and even a jump from 1 (No high school completion) to 6 (Post-grad) would increase LGBT\u00a0 perception in the positive direction by only 6.6. The p-value of 0.018 means that we would find a\u00a0 regression coefficient this large in 1.8% of samples of this size due to randomness of sampling alone.\u00a0 Consequently, we can infer that these results are statistically significant. Lastly, when we ran a\u00a0 multivariate regression controlling for ideology and education, we see a dramatic change from our initial\u00a0 difference of means test. Being an ethnic minority is associated with a 4.2 decrease in LGBT perceptions\u00a0 on a scale of 0-100, with 100 being maximum LGBT \u201cwarm\u201d feeling. The coefficient is moderately\u00a0 generous on our scale, and indicates a modest relationship. The p-value of 0.030 also indicated we would\u00a0 find a coefficient of this magnitude in less than 3% of samples, if there was no relationship. Hence we can\u00a0 be confident in this result and reject the null hypothesis at the 0.05-level.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In conclusion, the null hypothesis stating that there is no relationship between being an ethnic\u00a0 minority and negative LGBT perceptions can be rejected. As the multiple regression data shows, there\u00a0 exists statistically significant relationship when we controlled for education and political ideology. Our\u00a0 data infers that ethnic minorities, in comparison to white respondents, possess overall lower LGBT\u00a0 perceptions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Note: While I initially wanted to control for religiosity, no measures within the ANES 2016 small data set operationalized this <\/span>1<\/span> measure validly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Appendix A:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This report has been prepared in order to assess the potential relationship between being an ethnic\u00a0 minority and negative perceptions of the LGBT community. The \u201cAmerican National Election Study\u201d\u00a0 dataset was utilized in order to produce this statistical report using measures from 2016. The primary\u00a0 independent variable, ethnic minority, is operationalized through a binary self-identification … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “A STUDY INTO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ETHNIC MINORITIES AND LGBT PERCEPTIONS”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46802,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/shakiba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/shakiba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/shakiba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/shakiba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46802"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/shakiba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/shakiba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/shakiba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/shakiba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/shakiba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/shakiba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}