Exploring the relationship between gay men’s self- and meta-stereotype endorsement with well-being and self-worth

ABSTRACT

Stereotypes typically have negative impacts on stigmatized minority groups, especially when endorsed by members of that group. This paper examines the prevalence and consequences of stereotype endorsement on well-being within the gay community. Specifically, we explored how gay men’s self-stereotype (i.e., personal beliefs about the stereotypes pertaining to one’s in-group) and meta-stereotype (i.e., believing that out-group members endorse stereotypes pertaining to one’s in-group) endorsement would be related to mental and cognitive well-being. The sample of 253 gay male participants (aged 18–78 years; M = 38.25, SD = 13.51) completed an online questionnaire assessing demographics, self- and meta-stereotype endorsement, mental well-being (depression, anxiety, stress), and cognitive well-being (life satisfaction, self-worth) measures. We found evidence that our sample endorsed both self- and meta-stereotypes, with meta-stereotypes being endorsed more strongly than self-stereotypes. Regression analyses revealed a unique pattern of findings about the consequences of endorsing stereotypes: increases in self-stereotyping predicted decreases in mental well-being, whereas increases in meta-stereotyping predicted decreases in cognitive well-being. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Gay men
• gay male
• meta-stereotypes
• stereotype endorsement
• well-being
• self-worth

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Note: we ran all analyses with this entire sample and with only gay men – the differences were not meaningfully significant and so in the interest of conserving statistical power, we used the full sample.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jordan D. X. Hinton

Jordan D. X. Hinton is a post-graduate research student at Australian Catholic University with a research focus on sexual minority identity centrality and it's impact on well-being.

Joel R. Anderson

Joel R. Anderson is a lecturer in social psychology at Australian Catholic University with a research focus on minority-majority intergroup processes and intergroup relations.

Yasin Koc

Yasin Koc is a lecturer at the University of Groningen with a research focus on minority groups identities and well-being and intergroup relations.