GENDER DIFFERENCES IN ATTITUDES TOWARD HOMOSEXUALITY - A REPLY TO WHITLEY AND KITE

B. E. Whitley and M. E. Kite (1995) included additional studies of gender differences in attitudes toward homosexuality in their meta-analysis in part because they located additional studies but also because they included studies that did not match our (M. B. Oliver and J. S. Hyde, 1993) definition of constructs or that contained insufficient information for correct computation of effect sizes. Regarding attitudes about civil liberties for homosexuals, our results (d = .00) and theirs (d = .04) agree: There are no gender differences. Regarding general attitudes about homosexuality, Whitley and Kite's effect size (d = .26) is larger than ours (d = -.01) but is based on some inflated computations of d and on the addition of numerous samples of college students. The existence and magnitude of a gender difference in general attitudes toward homosexuality are still open questions.