Reactions and Feelings to a Close Relative's Coming Out in a Heterosexual Relationship.

Which different feelings and reactions do different family members show if an adult family member who has long been perceived as heterosexual discloses their sexual identity as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB)? Previous studies have investigated reactions of spouses and sometimes children in the United States. This article describes the findings of qualitative interviews and a German-language quantitative survey (N = 188) in which family members were asked about their emotions, experiences during the coming out process, and their use of support options. The samples were recruited via different LGB+ online forums and organizations in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (age M = 44.08). The results demonstrate that a coming out after years of a heterosexual biography and family life affects adults' parents and siblings in addition to spouses and children. Siblings were perceived as a supportive group of family members showing calm and mostly positive reactions. Parents mainly reported surprise but also showed on the one hand interest in supporting their children in the coming out process; on the other hand, we find also evidence for negative reactions including rejecting behavior. Children's coping and well-being depended on the time that had passed since the coming out and their age at the time of the coming out. Spouses felt shocked, angry, and the ground was pulled from under their feet. Comparing the perspectives of these groups of family members, differences between them, and their specific needs are discussed. Practical implications are derived from the support options mentioned, and range from information from books, the internet to professional advice. Spouses report the need of diverse support options, whereas other family members ask friends and other family members for support. Forums, counseling and the possibility to exchange were perceived as a support but were more accessible for women than for men. They provide the chance for a communicative exchange before the stress becomes too strong.

Racism in Europe: Characteristics and Intersections With Other Social Categories.

Concerning race and its intertwinements with gender, sexual orientation, class, accents, or ability there is a scarcity of social psychological research in Europe. With an intersectional approach studying racism in Europe it is possible to detect specific experiences of discrimination. The prevalent understanding of European racism is connected to migration from the former colonies to the European metropoles and the post-Second-World-War immigration of 'guest workers.' Thus, the focus of this research is on work-related discrimination. Against the background of a short historical review, we present the results of the few existing studies on intersectional discrimination within the labor market in Europe and discuss their implications. The pattern of findings is more complex than the assumption that individuals belonging to two or more marginalized social categories are always the most discriminated ones. Gender, sexual orientation, and origin rather interact with the specific job context. These interactions determine whether minority individuals are discriminated against or even preferred over individuals belonging to the majority group. We argue that considering the stereotype content model and social-identity theory helps to structure the sometimes contradictory results of intersectionality research. Therefore, the review presents new perspectives on racism in Europe based on current research, develops hypotheses on the interplay of intersecting identities, and identifies four novel research questions based on racist attributions considering situational variables: These are the role of concrete job contexts in explaining (no) discrimination, the influence of different stereotypes regarding marginalized groups, the explanatory value of sexual orientation as well as class or socioeconomic-status and age in terms of some patterns of results.

Traditional Masculinity and Femininity: Validation of a New Scale Assessing Gender Roles.

Gender stereotype theory suggests that men are generally perceived as more masculine than women, whereas women are generally perceived as more feminine than men. Several scales have been developed to measure fundamental aspects of gender stereotypes (e.g., agency and communion, competence and warmth, or instrumentality and expressivity). Although omitted in later version, Bem's original Sex Role Inventory included the items "masculine" and "feminine" in addition to more specific gender-stereotypical attributes. We argue that it is useful to be able to measure these two core concepts in a reliable, valid, and parsimonious way. We introduce a new and brief scale, the Traditional Masculinity-Femininity (TMF) scale, designed to assess central facets of self-ascribed masculinity-femininity. Studies 1-2 used known-groups approaches (participants differing in gender and sexual orientation) to validate the scale and provide evidence of its convergent validity. As expected the TMF reliably measured a one-dimensional masculinity-femininity construct. Moreover, the TMF correlated moderately with other gender-related measures. Demonstrating incremental validity, the TMF predicted gender and sexual orientation in a superior way than established adjective-based measures. Furthermore, the TMF was connected to criterion characteristics, such as judgments as straight by laypersons for the whole sample, voice pitch characteristics for the female subsample, and contact to gay men for the male subsample, and outperformed other gender-related scales. Taken together, as long as gender differences continue to exist, we suggest that the TMF provides a valuable methodological addition for research into gender stereotypes.

Ironic Effects of Sexual Minority Group Membership: Are Lesbians Less Susceptible to Invoking Negative Female Stereotypes than Heterosexual Women?

The traditional stereotype of the typical woman has been described as "nice, but incompetent." However, such general gender stereotypes are applied to individual targets only under certain conditions: They are used to "fill in the blanks" (Heilman, 2012) if little personal information is provided about a target. "Typical lesbians" are regarded to have more typically masculine (agentic) characteristics such as task competence than the typical woman does. We thus hypothesized that if a woman displays behavior coinciding with the stereotype of the typical woman, it is more readily interpreted as stereotypically female if performed by a heterosexual woman than by a lesbian. Participants (N = 296) read a hypothetical job interview in which we manipulated the target's sexual orientation (between subjects). Findings demonstrated that a lesbian was judged as more competent than a heterosexual woman in the presence of behavior that may be interpreted as gender-stereotypical (Experiments 1 and 2). This difference in competence judgments was not found in the absence of gender-stereotypical behavior (Experiment 1). Judging the heterosexual woman as low in masculinity was related to a judgment of lower competence (Experiment 2). Our findings demonstrate that there are conditions under which lesbians, a group often stereotyped negatively, are less susceptible to invoking negative female stereotypes than heterosexual women are.