"Religious Identity, Sexual Identity, and Internalized Homophobia in Ad" by Kevin Roum

Date of Conferral

1-27-2025

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Stephen Rice

Abstract

Over the past three decades, the percentage of the United States population that identifies as Christian has dropped significantly. At the same time, the level of acceptance of gay, lesbian, and bisexual identities has increased. However, this overall acceptance does not necessarily lead to an acceptance of these identities within specific Christian communities, leading to gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals having contradictory experiences between their Christian upbringing and secular society. Individuals who no longer identify as Christian after being so raised may experience additional dissonance as their sexuality identity conflicts with the teachings they were raised to believe yet no longer endorse. Research has suggested that individuals who deidentify from a religion tend to retain cognitive, emotional, and behavioral patterns that may lead to identity conflicts. Using religious residue and social identity theories as a theoretical framework, this cross-sectional, correlational quantitative study utilizing survey methodology sought to identify the relationships between sexual identity and religious identity variables in gay, lesbian, and bisexual adults who were raised in a Christian religious tradition and have since deidentified from that faith. Results of this study, using backwards regression and moderation analysis, found that religious fundamentalism, religiosity, outness, current and former religious identity, and geographic location all significantly predicted internalized homophobia. As more adults are identifying as nonreligious, it is important to better understand the experiences of those who change religious identities and how those former identities impact present psychological functioning, identity formation, and mental health.

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