Helping behavior as a subtle measure of discrimination against lesbians and gay men: German data and a comparison across countries

To unobtrusively assess attitudes toward lesbians and gay men, the wrong-number technique was used in a field experiment in Germany. The results are compared to studies using the same paradigm in Switzerland, Great Britain, and the United States. This approach gives a realistic picture of intercultural differences in social behavior against lesbians and gay men. Across studies, the results indicated that homosexuals are less likely to receive help than are heterosexuals. The variation of this effect between countries closely corresponded to the ranking of attitudes toward homosexuality assessed in survey studies. Contrary to survey studies, however, women showed only marginally less negative attitudes toward gay persons than men, when actual helping behavior was used as an attitude index.