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.

摘要

将自己标记为性少数群体并与他人分享这种身份通常代表了女同性恋、男同性恋和双性恋 (LGB) 个人的一个重要且有意的过程，因为大多数人被认为是异性恋。然而，此前很少有研究探讨性身份标签对 LGB 个体认知的影响。大型公立大学本科生（N= 661）被随机分配到三个条件之一：显式标签（例如约翰是同性恋）、隐式标签（例如约翰被男人吸引）或没有标签（例如约翰在披萨店工作）。每个条件的参与者阅读描述被分配显式标签、隐式标签或没有标签的字符的短小插曲。在阅读了每个小插曲后，他们对角色的 19 个特征进行了评分，包括负面、正面和控制特征。与没有性身份标签的控制角色相比，显性和隐性标签通常会增加对积极特征（例如“自豪”、“有弹性”和“有趣”）的评分。相比之下，标签操作对负面特征（例如“寻求关注”、“不可靠”和“不道德”）的评级几乎没有影响。这些结果表明，在某些情况下（文科大学），