Internalized homophobia and relationship quality among lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals.

“…of freedom for the model (values less than three; Carmines & McIver, 1981); the root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA; values below .06; Hu & Bentler, 1999); standardized root-meansquare residual (SRMR; values below .08; Hu & Bentler, 1999); and the comparative fit index (CFI; values…”

“We followed the two-step process recommended by Anderson and Gerbing (1988), which requires first demonstrating adequate fit of the measurement models using confirmatory factor analysis followed by testing the fit of the proposed structural models.”

“The three-item Positive Relations With Others scale was used, which is one of Ryff’s (Ryff, 1989; Ryff & Keyes, 1995) six psychological well-being scales.”

“It is important to recognize that our conceptualization of internalized homophobia locates it as a social stressor that is related to negative social stigma surrounding LGB lives prevalent in society today (Meyer, 2003a).”

“According to Shrout and Bolger (2002), if the bias-corrected 95% CIs around the estimates for the indirect effects do not contain 0, then it is possible to conclude that the indirect effects are statistically significant at the level of p .05.”

“…with what other researchers have found for this subscale and stems from the authors' desire to create a brief measure and maintain the multidimensionality of the overall psychological well-being construct at the expense of internal consistency (Chrouser Ahrens, & Ryff, 2006; Ryff & Keyes, 1995).”

“Studies have consistently demonstrated a direct relationship between internalized homophobia and depressive symptoms (e.g., Igartua, Gill, & Montoro, 2003; Meyer, 1995; Shidlo, 1994; Szymanski, Chung, & Balsam, 2001).”

“To test our hypotheses outlined in Figure 1 , we followed the steps provided by Holmbeck (1997; see also Frazier et al., 2004 ) using the bootstrapping techniques described above.”

“A sense of connectedness with similar others may serve to remind LGB people that they are not alone, provide social support for dealing with stress, and allow them to make more favorable social comparisons ( Crocker & Major, 1989; Lewis, Derlega, Clarke, & Kuang, 2006; Smith & Ingram, 2004).”

“The treatment of outness as an aspect of internalized homophobia stems from psychologists' view that coming out is a positive developmental stage in LGB identity development (Cass, 1979).”

“To correct for this problem, we used a bootstrapping procedure (Bollen & Stine, 1992, 1993) in AMOS ® to calculate (a) the average standardized path coefficients, their standard errors, and associated probability values on the basis of estimates from 10,000 samples dawn randomly from the 396…”

“One item was added— “You feel a bond with other [men who are gay or bisexual],” taken from Herek and Glunt’s (1995) Community Consciousness Scale—to the UMHS scale to capture symbolic affiliation that did not denote activity.”

“We therefore followed the procedure for testing the significance of the mediated effects of internalized homophobia outlined by Shrout and Bolger (2002) and Mallinckrodt, Abraham, Wei, and Russell (2006) .”

“Specifically, in a sample of New York City heads of households, although sex problems correlated moderately with the Anxiety subscale (r .33), sex problems correlated with the other 23 subscales at a level of .28 or lower, demonstrating discriminant validity (Dohrenwend et al., 1980).”

“Theories of identity development among lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGB) suggest that internalized homophobia is commonly experienced in the process of LGB identity development, and overcoming internalized homophobia is essential to the development of a healthy self-concept (Cass, 1979; Fingerhut, Peplau, & Ghava…”

“Although LGB people are gaining rights they did not have previously and the social stigma surrounding LGB lives has declined (Savin-Williams, 2005), negative representations of LGB intimate relationships remain.”

“…validity of the CES-D among both clinical and nonclinical samples in the form of large correlations with clinical reports of depression, DSM depression diagnoses, and other self-report measure of depression (for a review of validity evidence, see McDowell & Newell, 1996; Roberts & Vernon, 1983).”

“Relationship and loneliness strain—Participants’ experiences of chronic strains across a multitude of dimensions were assessed based on Wheaton’s (1999) conceptualization of chronic strain.”

“…work; unemployment; finances; education; parenting; residence; relationships; loneliness; significant other’s illness/health; caretaking responsibilities; relationship with parents; wanting children; and general strain (for a more detailed description of the full inventory, see Meyer et al., 2008).”

“The subscale correlates highly with personality trait agreeableness (Schmutte & Ryff, 1997).”

“The items for the Positive Relations With Others scale have been consistently demonstrated as representing a distinct single factor in Ryff’s six-factor model of psychological well-being (Ryff & Keyes, 1995; Ryff & Singer, 2006 ).”

“The discourse of opponents of marriage rights devalues relationships of LGB people and reaffirms what Meyer and Dean (1998) called “heterosexist opportunity structures” that privilege heterosexual relationships and discourage same-sex relationships.”

“It is important to recognize that our conceptualization of internalized homophobia locates it as a social stressor that is related to negative social stigma surrounding LGB lives prevalent in society today (Meyer, 2003a).”

“92 among LGBs (Frost, Parsons, & Nanin, 2007; Lewis et al., 2003).”

“…of depression has demonstrated that individuals who are depressed bring about negative affect, anxiety, and tension within their relationship partners, which, in turn, cause relationship problems in the form of misunderstandings and rejection (Coyne, Kahn, & Gotlib, 1987; Coyne et al., 1987).”

“Recent research on internalized homophobia and mental health has adopted a minority stress perspective (DiPlacido, 1998; Meyer 1995, 2003a).”

“Most significantly, some have included in the definition of internalized homophobia the degree to which the person is out about his or her sexual orientation (we refer to this as outness here) and connected to the LGB community (Mayfield, 2001; Shidlo, 1994; Williamson, 2000).”

“Internalized homophobia has been linked to poor relationship quality within both male and female same-sex relationships (Balsam & Szymanski, 2005; Otis, Rostosky, Riggle, & Hamrin, 2006).”

“Studies have consistently demonstrated a direct relationship between internalized homophobia and depressive symptoms (e.g., Igartua, Gill, & Montoro, 2003; Meyer, 1995; Shidlo, 1994; Szymanski, Chung, & Balsam, 2001).”

“Furthermore, providing evidence of validity on the basis of expected demographic differences, Marks and Lambert (1998) showed that individuals who are separated or divorced are significantly lower on positive relations with others than married individuals.”

“The discourse of opponents of marriage rights devalues relationships of LGB people and reaffirms what Meyer and Dean (1998) called “heterosexist opportunity structures” that privilege heterosexual relationships and discourage same-sex relationships.”

“Theories of identity development among lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGB) suggest that internalized homophobia is commonly experienced in the process of LGB identity development, and overcoming internalized homophobia is essential to the development of a healthy self-concept (Cass, 1979; Fingerhut, Peplau, & Ghava…”

“Until a consensus emerges, we prefer the term used since the early development of the concept (Malyon, 1982).”

“Furthermore, internalized homophobia may never be completely overcome, thus it could affect LGB individuals long after coming out (Gonsiorek, 1988).”

“We therefore could not study factors that can only be observed at the dyadic level (Mohr & Fassinger, 2006; Otis et al., 2006).”

“As Fassinger and Miller (1996) noted, " disclosure is so profoundly influenced by contextual oppression that to use it as an index of identity development directly forces the victim to take responsibility for his or her own victimization " (p. 56).”

“Scores on the measure demonstrated internal consistency of .78 in the UMHS (Barrett & Pollack, 2005), and with the addition of the new item, scores on this measure in the present study had a Cronbach’s alpha of .80.”

“A sense of connectedness with similar others may serve to remind LGB people that they are not alone, provide social support for dealing with stress, and allow them to make more favorable social comparisons (Crocker & Major, 1989; Lewis, Derlega, Clarke, & Kuang, 2006; Smith & Ingram, 2004).”

“Kline (2004) has noted that significance testing should not be the only consideration in reviewing results so that not only Type I but also Type II errors (not recognizing a relationship because of lack of power) would be minimized.”

“These findings are consistent with previous research that has shown a negative relationship between internalized homophobia and relationship quality (e.g., Meyer, 1995; Meyer & Dean, 1998; Otis et al., 2006; Shidlo, 1994; Szymanski et al., 2001).”

“We therefore could not study factors that can only be observed at the dyadic level (Mohr & Fassinger, 2006; Otis et al., 2006).”

“The IHP scale was originally developed by Martin and Dean (1992) to assess the extent to which LGB individuals reject their sexual orientation, are uneasy about their same-sex desires, and seek to avoid same-sex attractions and sexual feelings (Herek & Glunt, 1995; Meyer, 1995; Meyer & Dean, 1998).”

“…problems, this finding is not surprising given recent calls by psychologists to avoid seeing outness as an indication of internalized homophobia (Eliason & Schope, 2007) and research that showed that internalized homophobia was negatively related to relationship quality, but outness was not…”

“Rostosky and Riggle (2002) demonstrated that coming out at work is a function not only of individuals' levels of internalized homophobia, but also their perceiving a safe and nondiscriminatory work environment.”

“Health Study (UMHS), a multi-city study of gay men’s psychological and physical health (Mills et al., 2001).”

“…dfrost@gc.cuny.edu Journal of Counseling Psychology © 2009 American Psychological Association 2009, Vol. 56, No. 1, 97–109 0022-0167/09/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0012844 97 from prevailing heterosexism and sexual prejudice, not from internal pathology or a personality trait (Russell & Bohan, 2006).”

“Although there is less research about sexual intimacy among women, internalized homophobia has also been implicated in sexual problems among lesbians and bisexual women (Nichols, 2004).”

“For example, outness has been shown to be indicative of better relationship quality by some researchers (Caron & Ulin, 1997; LaSala, 2000), whereas others have found that outness was not related to relationship quality (Balsam & Szymanski, 2005; Beals & Peplau, 2001).”

“…of internalized homophobia are associated with greater sexual depression , sexual anxiety, sexual image concern, and fear of sexuality as well as lower levels of sexual esteem and sexual satisfaction and are predictive of sexual problems among gay and bisexual men (Dupras, 1994; Meyer, 1995).”

“For example, outness has been shown to be indicative of better relationship quality by some researchers (Caron & Ulin, 1997; LaSala, 2000), whereas others have found that outness was not related to relationship quality (Balsam & Szymanski, 2005; Beals & Peplau, 2001).”

“Riggle, Thomas, and Rostosky (2005) noted that the present debate on marriage rights creates a " majority tyranny " that is on its own psychologically harmful to LGB individuals.”

“Few, however, have empirically studied whether internalized homophobia and depressive symptoms are independently related to relationship quality (Biss & Horne, 2005).”

“For example, others' knowledge of one's sexual orientation was shown to be related to external pressures such as having experienced discrimination and physical and verbal abuse (Frost & Bastone, 2007; Schope, 2004), suggesting that choosing not to disclose can be self-protective.”

“For example, others’ knowledge of one’s sexual orientation was shown to be related to external pressures such as having experienced discrimination and physical and verbal abuse (Frost & Bastone, 2007; Schope, 2004), suggesting that choosing not to disclose can be self-protective.”

“…homophobia” and related constructs have reflected differing assumptions about exactly which phenomena should be considered direct manifestations of sexual self-stigma and which should be regarded as its antecedents, correlates, or consequences (e.g., Frost & Meyer, 2009; Shidlo, 1994).”

“The current study included a modified version (presented in Frost & Meyer, 2009) that assessed how often participants have ‘‘wished you weren’t gay,’’ ‘‘felt alienated from yourself because of being gay,’’ and ‘‘felt that being gay is a personal shortcoming.’’”

“The measure has good face validity, construct validity, and internal consistency (Frost & Meyer, 2009).”

“For example, intergenerational and life-course differences should be expected and may affect the measure's properties (Frost & Meyer, 2009 ; Kertzner et al, 2009 ; Van Dyke & Cress, 2006 ).”