Ideological asymmetries in online hostility, intimidation, obscenity, and prejudice.

To investigate ideological symmetries and asymmetries in the expression of online prejudice, we used machine-learning methods to estimate the prevalence of extreme hostility in a large dataset of Twitter messages harvested in 2016. We analyzed language contained in 730,000 tweets on the following dimensions of bias: (1) threat and intimidation, (2) obscenity and vulgarity, (3) name-calling and humiliation, (4) hatred and/or racial, ethnic, or religious slurs, (5) stereotypical generalizations, and (6) negative prejudice. Results revealed that conservative social media users were significantly more likely than liberals to use language that involved threat, intimidation, name-calling, humiliation, stereotyping, and negative prejudice.

A multilevel analysis of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) rights support across 77 countries: The role of contact and country laws.

Although intergroup contact reduces prejudice generally, there are growing calls to examine contextual factors in conjunction with contact. Such an approach benefits from more sophisticated analytic approaches, such as multilevel modelling, that take both the individual (Level-1) and their environment (Level-2) into account. Using this approach, we go beyond attitudes to assess both individual and contextual predictors of support for gay/lesbian and transgender rights.

The future of system justification theory.

In this article, we respond to commentaries by Friesen et al. (2018, Br. J.

Male homosexuality and maternal immune responsivity to the Y-linked protein NLGN4Y.

We conducted a direct test of an immunological explanation of the finding that gay men have a greater number of older brothers than do heterosexual men. This explanation posits that some mothers develop antibodies against a Y-linked protein important in male brain development, and that this effect becomes increasingly likely with each male gestation, altering brain structures underlying sexual orientation in their later-born sons. Immune assays targeting two Y-linked proteins important in brain development-protocadherin 11 Y-linked (PCDH11Y) and neuroligin 4 Y-linked (NLGN4Y; isoforms 1 and 2)-were developed.

When and why is religious attendance associated with antigay bias and gay rights opposition? A justification-suppression model approach.

Even in relatively tolerant countries, antigay bias remains socially divisive, despite being widely viewed as violating social norms of tolerance. From a Justification-Suppression Model (JSM) framework, social norms may generally suppress antigay bias in tolerant countries, yet be "released" by religious justifications among those who resist gay rights progress. Across large, nationally representative US samples (Study 1) and international samples (Study 2, representing a total of 97 different countries), over 215,000 participants, and various indicators of antigay bias (e.