Interpersonal contact with outgroup members is known to reduce prejudice, which is widely applied to attitudes toward LGB people. However, this effect across different socio-cultural contexts, which vary in the prevalence of openly LGB individuals, social norms, and legal frameworks, remains underexplored. Through cross-national analysis, we aim to investigate whether the effects of personal contact with LGB people hold across differing socio-cultural contexts, even when controlling for various social factors such as religiosity, economic development, and individualism, as well as demographic factors such as education, and whether they operate at both the individual and the societal level.
We conducted a secondary analysis of the Eurobarometer 83.4 (2015, EU), which includes multiple items on acceptance of LGB people (continuous) and personal contact with LGB people (dichotomous). After excluding cases with missing responses and national-level covariates, sample sizes ranged from 18,853 to 26,085, nested within 25-30 countries. Outcome variables were acceptance of sexual relationships between same-sex people, comfort with an LGB colleague, and comfort with an LGB political leader. For each outcome, we estimated multiple multilevel random-intercept models.
Across models, personal contact with an LGB person predicted higher acceptance for all outcomes (βs = .21 - .25). At the national level, higher contact rates also predicted greater acceptance (βs= .24 - .36), with effects comparable to the legalization of same-sex marriage (βs = .21 - .27) and other societal factors.
The findings indicate that interpersonal contact with LGB individuals is a significant factor associated with acceptance at both individual and national levels across different socio-cultural contexts, with effects comparable to structural or legal conditions. Although causal inferences cannot be drawn due to the cross-sectional design and the inclusion of LGB respondents may affect estimates, the results underscore the potential of contact-based approaches for reducing prejudice, at least in European countries.