L - 16 Sexual Minority Stress Flashcards
According to the psychoanalytic model of homosexuality, what is the cause of male and female homosexuality?
Male: an overbearing mother and absent father.
Female: a negative oedipal complex and PENIS envy.
Who challenged the notion that homosexuality was a form of psychopathology?
Evelyn Hooker (1957)
How did Evelyn Hooker (1957) challenge the notion that homosexuality was a form of psychopathology?
She subjected 30 homosexual males, and 30 matched control males to a battery of tests of psychological adjustment and psychopathology, finding no difference between the two groups.
This lead to homosexuality being removed for DSM-II in 1973
LGBQ individuals, when compared to heterosexual counterparts exhibit higher lifetime prevalence of mental health problems such as:
Depression and anxiety (3 x greater) Suicidal ideation (4 x greater) Suicide attempts (8 x greater) Substance misuse (4 x greater)
The Australian Longitudinal Study of Women’s health found that lesbian and bisexual women have higher rates of WHAT, when compared to heterosexual females?
Smoking, alcohol abuse, and illicit drug use.
Give a brief outline of the Minority Stress Hypothesis:
The Minority Stress Hypothesis refers to the interaction of general, distal, and proximal stressors to a minority population which influence mental health outcomes.
What is a distal stressor in the Minority Stress Hypothesis?
Distal stressors can range from hate crimes to homophobic remarks and can be categorised at formal or informal.
Formal, referring to legal or institutional, e.g. sodomy laws, marriage act.
Informal may be in the form of social/family exclusion, or physical and verbal victimisation.
What is the most common form of distal stressor reportedly experienced by LGBQ people?
Verbal harassment (61%) Sexual harassment (47%) Physical harassment (28%) Physical assault (14%)
These prejudiced events are said to lead to hyper-vigilance and psychopathology.
What did Burton et al. (2013) find in relation to discrimination accounting for the mental health disparities between LGBQ and heterosexual people?
They showed that sexual minority status was significantly related to sexual minority-specific victimisation (frequency of negative treatment in last 6 months).
They also showed that frequency of sexual minority-specific victimisation was significantly related to depression symptoms and suicidality.
They found no direct effect of sexual minority status on depression symptoms, suggesting a mediating effect of increased victimisation.
Provide an example of a natural experiment showing an increase in stress on LGBQ individuals:
Data from The National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (USA), from 2004-2005 when there was a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage showed an increase in depression, alcohol abuse, anxiety, and drug disorders, for LGBQ people (not heterosexual) only in states where the marriage equality act was on the ballot.
What is a proximal stressor in the Minority Stress Hypothesis?
A proximal stressor refers to an internal state of the individual, said to be develop from prejudice/discrimination.
What are the three proximal stressors identified by Meyer (2003)?
Internalised homophobia,
Stigma consciousness, and
Concealment.
Define internalised homophobia:
Internalised homophobia refers to the internalisation of negative societal attitudes about homosexuality/bisexuality.
What are some of the effects of internalised homophobia on the individual?
Discomfort disclosing orientation.
Disconnect from other LGBQ people.
Discomfort toward same sex sexual behaviour.
Inner conflict, low self-esteem.
Name some correlates/predictors of internalised homophobia:
Age (less likely in older ages). Religiosity. Low income. Rural locality (in gay men, but not lesbian women). Anti-effeminacy attitudes in gay men.
