Predicting Self‐Esteem, Well‐Being, and Distress in a Cohort of Gay Men: The Importance of Cultural Stigma, Personal Visibility, Community Networks, and Positive Identity
1997/09/01 by Deborrah E. S. Frable, Camilla Wortman, Jill Joseph +1 · 191 citations
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Checklist #Clinical psychology #Cohort #Cohort study #Developmental psychology #Distress #Ethnic group #HIV/AIDS Research and Interventions #LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy #Medicine #Psychiatry #Psychology #Racial and Ethnic Identity Research #Self-esteem #Social psychology #Sociology #Stigma (botany)
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1997.tb00328.x
published in Journal of Personality 65(3), 599-624 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 1997/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Abstract
Homosexual and bisexual men (N = 825) enrolled in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study in Chicago completed a 90-minute self-administered questionnaire that included the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, a Well-Being Index, and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist. Participants indicated their experiences with gay stigma, their visibility as gay men, their involvement in the gay community, and their commitment to a positive gay identity. Data from this predominantly white, young, educated, and middle-class cohort are consistent with a structural model in which cultural stigma is negatively associated with positive self-perceptions. This within-group result contrasts sharply with between-group results that indicate our gay cohort was neither particularly low in global self-esteem nor high in psychological distress when compared to nonstigmatized samples.
Citations
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