Media Representations of LGBT People

Location

Presentation- College of Behavioral and Social Sciences

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis Presentation (Archived)

Faculty Mentor

Dr. Amy Hackney

Faculty Mentor Email

ahackney@georgiasouthern.edu

Presentation Year

2021

Start Date

26-4-2021 12:00 AM

End Date

30-4-2021 12:00 AM

Keywords

Georgia Southern University, Honors Symposium, Presentation

Description

LGBT people of color (POC) and White LGBT people have different experiences when it comes to accepting their sexuality and their coming out experience, which affects their mental health and community interactions. The coming out process is a step towards a healthy and happy life, revealing an internal acceptance of oneself while expressing the desire to be open to others. However, researchers have discovered that LGBT people consider coming out to be a stressful and emotionally daunting process due to the uncertainty of responses from friends and family (Charbonnier & Graziani, 2016). An additional situational variable that may affect outness comfort is the representation of LGBT POC and White LGBT people in the media. In the current study, forty-five LGBT participants were randomly assigned to watch media representations of LGBT interactions and completed measures of situational outness comfort, state anxiety, and state depression. The State-Trait Personality Inventory (STPI, Speilberger, 1995) was used to measure the emotional state of participants after each video as well as trait levels of anxiety and depression. Participants also completed an Outness Inventory (OI, Mohr & Fassinger, 2000) which measured participants' current openness with their sexuality. We predicted that LGBT POC would indicate higher levels of thoughts and feelings associated with state anxiety and state depression, lower comfort levels, and decreased outness than White LGBT people. Results will be discussed in relation to the hypotheses and the implications for supporting the mental health of LGBT people of color and White LGBT people.

Academic Unit

College of Behavioral and Social Sciences

Comments

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Apr 26th, 12:00 AM Apr 30th, 12:00 AM

Media Representations of LGBT People

Presentation- College of Behavioral and Social Sciences

LGBT people of color (POC) and White LGBT people have different experiences when it comes to accepting their sexuality and their coming out experience, which affects their mental health and community interactions. The coming out process is a step towards a healthy and happy life, revealing an internal acceptance of oneself while expressing the desire to be open to others. However, researchers have discovered that LGBT people consider coming out to be a stressful and emotionally daunting process due to the uncertainty of responses from friends and family (Charbonnier & Graziani, 2016). An additional situational variable that may affect outness comfort is the representation of LGBT POC and White LGBT people in the media. In the current study, forty-five LGBT participants were randomly assigned to watch media representations of LGBT interactions and completed measures of situational outness comfort, state anxiety, and state depression. The State-Trait Personality Inventory (STPI, Speilberger, 1995) was used to measure the emotional state of participants after each video as well as trait levels of anxiety and depression. Participants also completed an Outness Inventory (OI, Mohr & Fassinger, 2000) which measured participants' current openness with their sexuality. We predicted that LGBT POC would indicate higher levels of thoughts and feelings associated with state anxiety and state depression, lower comfort levels, and decreased outness than White LGBT people. Results will be discussed in relation to the hypotheses and the implications for supporting the mental health of LGBT people of color and White LGBT people.