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Internalized Stigma Among Sexual Minority Adults: Insights From a Social Psychological Perspective
This article describes a social psychological framework for understanding sexual stigma, and it reports data on sexual minority individuals' stigma-related experiences. The framework distinguishes between stigma's manifestations in society's institutions ( heterosexism ) and among ind...
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Published in: | Journal of counseling psychology 2009-01, Vol.56 (1), p.32-43 |
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Main Authors: | , , |
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Subjects: | |
Citations: | Items that cite this one |
Online Access: | Get full text |
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Summary: | This article describes a social psychological framework for understanding sexual stigma, and it reports data on sexual minority individuals' stigma-related experiences. The framework distinguishes between stigma's manifestations in society's institutions (
heterosexism
) and among individuals. The latter include
enacted sexual stigma
(overt negative actions against sexual minorities, such as hate crimes),
felt sexual stigma
(expectations about the circumstances in which sexual stigma will be enacted), and
internalized sexual stigma
(personal acceptance of sexual stigma as part of one's value system and self-concept). Drawing from previous research on internalized sexual stigma among heterosexuals (i.e.,
sexual prejudice
), the article considers possible parallels in how sexual minorities experience internalized sexual stigma (i.e.,
self-stigma
, or negative attitudes toward the self). Data are presented from a community sample of lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults (
N
= 2,259) to illustrate the model's utility for generating and testing hypotheses concerning self-stigma. |
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ISSN: | 0022-0167 1939-2168 |
DOI: | 10.1037/a0014672 |