Changing Attitudes toward Homosexuality in Ghana: The Power of Attributional Discourse

Abstract

It is overwhelmingly documented that attitudes toward homosexuals in Africa are largely negative, yet there is little exploration on interventional measures for change. This study therefore examined the effectiveness of using attributional discourse to change attitudes toward homosexuals in Ghana. In a pretest–posttest between-group design, 143 university students were randomly assigned into four experimental conditions (i.e., biological, choice, biological transgender, and choice transgender) with informative vignettes serving as the intervention. Posttest evaluation results showed a significant reduction in participants’ negative attitudes toward homosexuals across all four treatment conditions. There were no significant between-group differences and no significant gender differences in attitudinal change after controlling for pretest evaluation. The findings suggest the need to encourage healthy attributional discourse over the rationality in homosexual decisions and behaviors. Particularly, educating the public on the probable reasons behind homosexuality can potentially reduce negative attitudes toward homosexuals and impact legislative policies in Ghana.