Out, proud, and resilient: effects of sexual identity labels on perceptions of sexual minorities

ABSTRACT

Labelling oneself as a sexual minority and sharing that identity with others often represents a significant and intentional process for lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals, as most individuals are assumed to be heterosexual. However, little previous research has explored the effects of sexual identity labels on perceptions of LGB individuals. Undergraduate students from a large public university (N = 661) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: explicit labels (e.g. John is gay), implicit labels (e.g. John is attracted to men), or no labels (e.g. John works at a pizza place). Participants in each condition read short vignettes describing characters that were assigned explicit labels, implicit labels, or no labels. After reading each vignette, they rated characters on 19 traits, including negative, positive, and control traits. Explicit and implicit labels generally increased ratings on positive traits (e.g. ‘proud’, ‘resilient’, and ‘fun’) in comparison to control characters with no sexual identity labels. In contrast, there were few effects of the label manipulation on ratings of negative traits (e.g. ‘attention-seeking’, ‘unreliable’, and ‘immoral’). These results suggest that in some contexts (liberal university), openly disclosing one’s sexual identity explicitly or implicitly may enhance positive perceptions from others.

KEYWORDS:

• LGB
• stigma
• perceptions
• labels
• attitudes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author statement

None of the authors have any conflicts of interest. All authors are listed, and all contributed substantially to the manuscript. The data reported in this manuscript have not been published and are not under consideration for publication elsewhere.