Measuring sexual self-concept: a methodological review

ABSTRACT

Sexual self-concept (SSC) is a person’s perception of themself as a sexual being. SSC is a key construct in understanding people’s sexuality. However, the extent to which sexuality researchers consistently define, measure, and evaluate SSC is unknown. In this review, we determine the common elements of researchers’ conceptual definitions of SSC (RQ1), describe how researchers measure SSC (RQ2), examine the structural (RQ3) and external (RQ4) validity of these measures, and (highlight who is represented in the creation of SSC measures (RQ5). We conducted a comprehensive review of 67 peer-reviewed SSC studies identified through a systematic search of five databases. We extracted data using Loevinger’s (1957) three phases of construct validation: substantive, structural, and external. Our results highlight current limitations in SSC construct validity. Of the 67 studies, 50 provided a conceptual SSC definition, including 14 unique definitions. Additionally, there were 32 unique measures of SSC, providing 34 distinct subscales. White (38.3%), female (47.8%), and North American (47.8%) participants were mostly represented in the research; sexual minoritized people’s perceptions were underrepresented. We discuss the importance of having consistent theory-driven definitions of SSC. Moreover, researchers must consider how different groups of people uniquely understand and construct their SSCs to improve knowledge.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual self-concept
• method review
• construct validity

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Patrick Labelle for his assistance with creating our systematic search strategy and Sara Moazami for her help in the article screening process.

Disclosure statement

We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.

Data availability statement

The search strategy and the data that supports the findings of this study are openly available in OSF at http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/5C693.

Notes

1. Sexual minoritized people can include, but are not limited to, gay men, lesbian women, bisexual, asexual, pansexual, and queer people.

2. Gender/sex is an umbrella term used to capture the intertwined relationship between sex (i.e. bodily features relating to maleness, femaleness, and sex diversity) and gender (i.e. social, cultural, and/or learned phenomena relating to femininity, masculinity, and gender diversity) and how they can not always be neatly separated (Van Anders, 2015). We use this term to acknowledge this ambiguity.

3. Gender/sex minoritized people can include, but are not limited to, transgender men, transgender women, nonbinary, genderqueer, and intersex people.

4. In our review, some researchers of the included studies utilised measures that have been operationalised to evaluate constructs other than SSC (e.g. sexual self-schema, sex roles). We included these studies because the authors specified that they were using the measures to evaluate SSC.

5. Models that explain > 60% of variance indicate good model fit (Hair et al., 2012).

Additional information

Funding

The first author is supported in part by a Doctoral Fellowship Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.