Morris, WendyWendyMorrisSlonim, GalGalSlonimOsburn, BrittanyBrittanyOsburn2019-09-192017-03-242017https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/handle/uniba/41748Past research has found that single people are perceived more negatively than coupled people. However, in past research, the target’s sexual orientation was not explicitly mentioned. The current experiment manipulated the sexual orientation of targets and also measured the sexual orientation of participants to test whether the relatively negative perceptions of single people are held about people and believed by people regardless of their sexual orientation. Three hundred ninety heterosexual and 226 gay and lesbian participants from Israel and the United States read descriptions of target people. Targets were described as heterosexual, gay, or lesbian; single or in a long-term relationship; and men or women. Although single people were consistently perceived more negatively than coupled people, F(1, 600) = 130.78, p < .001, η2 = .18, participants perceived the differences between coupled and single targets as being largest when they rated targets of the same sexual orientation as themselves, F(1, 600) = 10.38, p =.001, η2 = 0.02. Furthermore, regardless of their own sexual orientation, participants who expressed a stronger desire for a long-term romantic relationship held more negative views of single people compared to coupled people, r = .10, p < .01.engsinglehood singles stereotypes perceptions sexual orientationarticlehttps://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bamberg/frontdoor/index/index/docId/49035urn:nbn:de:bvb:473-opus4-488881