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Measuring Gay and Lesbian Group Affect

ABSTRACT There is a large literature in psychology on how affect toward social groups affects person perception. This literature is applicable to political science, where increasingly, political candidates from non-traditional groups-women, African Americans and gays and lesbians-are running for public office and entering the political arena. In this paper we explore the components of group affect as it relates to these evaluations. Specifically, we examine gay and lesbian candidates, since they are increasingly visible in politics, and Americans typically have strong affect toward and strong stereotypes about gays and lesbians. Using factor analysis in LISREL, we estimate a confirmatory factor analysis to better understand homosexual affect. The results illustrate that it is necessary to consider gay and lesbian affect as a three-factor latent model to reduce measurement error. Hence, this work should guide future research dealing with gay and lesbian political candidates and candidates belonging to other non-traditional groups.