Sexological Worldview Development Explained by the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity

Abstract

Sexological worldview is the lens through which someone sees and makes meaning of the sexual world around them. The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) may be a useful tool in operationalizing cultural humility and responsiveness to sexological differences. This research explored whether the DMIS explains the stages of someone’s sexological worldview development across a continuum of dualist to relativist perspectives and ways of interacting with others who are similar or different. The lead author interviewed 30 sexuality professionals and students in the US and found that the participants’ sexological worldview development could be explained using the DMIS framework. We discuss the use of the DMIS for the future design of Sexuality Attitudes Reassessment (SAR) programs, a type of training required in the credentialing of sexologists, and the measurement of SAR training outcomes as they pertain to cultural humility and responsiveness. Future research should focus on the development of an empirical instrument to measure sexological worldview development and SAR educators should create new, or align existing, training activities to match their SAR participants’ worldview development.

Keywords:

• Sexology
• training
• SAR
• worldview development
• DMIS

Subject classification codes:

• N/A

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Tyler Burns and our colleagues at the ISRC for their critique, support, diligence, and dedication to the work of expanding their own and others’ worldviews and designing tools to support the process.

Disclosure statement

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