Implicit Self-stigma and Its Social Psychological, Mental, Physical, and Sexual Health Correlates in Self-identified Lesbians and Gay Men

Résumé du livre

For lesbians and gay men, sexual self-stigma is associated with many adverse psychological outcomes. Nonetheless, a number of limitations characterize past empirical efforts, including a lack of clarity in which self-stigma has been defined and measured. These limitations characterize event recent attempts to examine self-stigma using indirect measures. Two studies are presented that aim to address these limitations and examine the social psychological, mental, physical, and sexual health correlates associated with implicit self-stigma and sexual prejudice in self-identified lesbians and gay men (N = 195). In both studies, participants completed a self-based evaluative IAT to measure implicit self-stigma, a group-based evaluative IAT to measure implicit sexual prejudice, and a series of self-report measures. In Study 1, implicit self-stigma was associated with less favorable attitudes toward lesbians and gay men, less global self-esteem, and less support for group-serving public policy. Implicit sexual prejudice was associated with less global self-esteem. Implicit self-stigma and implicit sexual prejudice interacted to predict ingroup relative to outgroup favoritism. In Study 2, implicit self-stigma was associated with less favorable attitudes toward heterosexuals, more felt stigma, more symptoms related to depression and anxiety, while implicit self-stigma and sexual prejudice interacted to predict explicit self-stigma, evaluations of the self as lesbian or gay, evaluations of the self relative to others, explicit sexual prejudice, ingroup favoritism relative to outgroup favoritism, and alcohol consumption. Multinomial modeling using the Quadruple Process model (Quad model; Conrey et al., 2005; Sherman et al., 2008) was applied to the error rates of the indirect measures, demonstrating that the activation of association (AC) and overcoming bias (OB) played an important role. Although the results from these studies are generally modest, they confirm that implicit self-stigma is associated with a number of adverse outcomes. In addition, the self-stigma IAT developed for use in this research demonstrates that the self- and group=based approach are empirically and conceptually distinct. Furthermore, the Quad model revealed the activation of biased association and cognitive control predicted the relationship between participants' performance on these indirect measures and their responses to self-report measures. Consequently, the self-stigma IAT developed for use in this research provides a novel strategy for future empirical research on self-stigma.