What’s love got to do with it? Changing tolerance towards non-binary people with the use of inner dialogue.

Abstract

Research has shown that non-binary individuals are at a higher risk of physical and psychological abuse, suicidal ideation, mental health problems and stigmatisation compared to cisgender and transgender youth. It is therefore necessary to find effective ways to increase tolerance towards non-binary people. This study investigates the effectiveness of two promising interventions for increasing tolerance towards non-binary people: inner dialogue and raising awareness. It is hypothesised that both interventions will increase tolerance. Inner dialogue is hypothesised to be the most effective. The study will employ a pretest/posttest experimental design with three conditions: awareness, inner dialogue, and control. The sample comprises 16 to 25-year-old youth (n = 82). Tolerance was measured with a modified version of the T-KAB (α = .94). Results from the Kruskal-Wallis test indicate no significant effect of condition on tolerance increase, nor significant differences between conditions.