Three’ s a crowd: public awareness and (mis)perceptions of polyamory Kevin T. Hutzler, Traci A. Giuliano*, Jordan R. Herselman and Sarah M. Johnson Department of Psychology, Southwestern University, Georgetown, USA (Received 24 April 2014; accepted 31 December 2014) In order to extend the literature on consensual nonmonogamy, we conducted two studies that examined public awareness and perceptions of polyamory. Specifically, we identified individual differences that predict people’ s attitudes towards polyamory and also explored whether manipulations grounded in prejudice-reduction theory might lead to more positive perceptions. In both studies, individuals reporting more tradi- tional traits (e.g. political conservatism and religiosity) had more negative attitudes towards polyamory. In addition, participants’ prior exposure to polyamory (i.e. famil- iarity with the term polyamory or knowing someone polyamorous) was positively related to attitudes towards polyamory, consistent with Allport’ s contact hypothesis. Finally, an experimental manipulation revealed that participants who either received additional information about polyamory (consistent with the notion that increased knowledge about outgroups can reduce prejudice; Pettigrew & Tropp) or were asked to consider the advantages and limitations of monogamy (consistent with value self- confrontation theory; Rokeach) exhibited more positive attitudes towards polyamory than did participants who only received a standard definition of polyamory. As our results represent some of the first empirical findings on perceptions of polyamory, implications for addressing the stigmatisation of this relationship style are discussed. Keywords: polyamory; nonmonogamy; stigma; perceptions; attitudes; relationships Over the last four decades, consensually nonmonogamous (CNM) relationships have become increasingly popular. Recent estimates of individuals who practice CNM, or ‘a broad range of relationships in which all individuals in the relationship agree to engage in multiple sexual, romantic, and/or emotional relationships with others’ (Matsick, Conley, Ziegler, Moors, & Rubin, 2013, p. 1), range between 4% and 5% of the US population (Conley, Moors, Matsick, & Ziegler, 2013). Over the last decade, CNM has also increas- ingly become the subject of news articles, political debates, popular self-help books and television shows (Easton & Hardy, 2009; Hayes, Poole, & Streb, 2010; Nasaw, 2012). This increasing public interest has coincided with a growing body of research on CNM in a number of areas such as law, counselling, health, philosophy, sociology, anthropology and psychology (cf., Barker & Langdridge, 2010). Characteristics of consensually nonmonogamous relationship styles A broad term, ‘consensual nonmonogamy’, describes a group of distinct relationship styles, including swinging (a couple engaging in extradyadic sex, usually with a social element; Jenks, 1998), open relationships (partners seeking independent sexual relation- ships outside of the dyad; Matsick et al., 2013) and polyamory (i.e., ‘simultaneous, consensual, romantic relationships with multiple partners’; Mitchell, Bartholomew, & *Corresponding author. Email: giuliant@southwestern.edu Psychology & Sexuality , 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2015.1004102 © 2015 Taylor & Francis