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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1462431

How it affects me: The effects of arguments in public debates on marriage equality for young people in Taiwan

Provisionally accepted
I-Ching Lee I-Ching Lee *
  • National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    How do arguments in public debates regarding same-sex marriage affect young people? The literature has suggested three possible effects. These debates may affect young people, regardless of their sexual identities, due to the fact that young people widely share a set of values pertaining to human rights and equality (H1). These debates may affect sexual minority individuals more strongly than heterosexual individuals because the arguments used in such debates are targeted at sexual minority individuals (H2). Alternatively, these debates may affect positive and negative outcomes in different ways depending on the nature of the arguments (H3). Two experimental studies (N = 92 and N = 411) were conducted in Taiwan with the goal of testing these three hypotheses. The evidence revealed by these studies largely supported the first hypothesis. The effects observed were similar across young people with different sexual identities and various types of outcomes: reading arguments in support of same-sex marriage increased positive emotions (in both studies) and reduced negative emotions (in Study 2) in comparison with a control condition.Further implications regarding young people's responses to social changes are discussed.

    Keywords: Same-sex marriage, sexual orientation, Subjective well-being, dyadic sample, Debates

    Received: 10 Jul 2024; Accepted: 31 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Lee. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: I-Ching Lee, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

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