Attachment Patterns for Lesbian/Gay Individuals with Unaccepting Parents

While much research has considered how lesbian/gay parents affect straight children, less attention has been paid to how heterosexual parents affect their lesbian/gay children. At the same time, attachment theorists are trying to determine how contiguous individuals’ differential attachments are to each other, especially in predictive utility. A secure base is best for exploratory processes such as sexual-identity development. Given that lovers share the role of primary attachment with parents in adulthood, lovers for lesbian/gay individuals, compared to heterosexuals, may be a unique source of social support against rejection sensitivity and victimization by unaccepting parents. The results of this study suggest that rejection sensitivity moderates the effect of parents’ acceptance/rejection on parental attachment patterns. Moreover, parental attachment patterns differentially predict romantic attachment dimensions across orientation, and exert limited influence on lesbian/gay romantic attachment and satisfaction relative to heterosexuals. This suggests that lesbians/gays use their romantic attachment as primary to a greater degree than heterosexuals, and dissociate their romantic attachment from their parental attachment in a manner not observed for heterosexuals. This likely reflects protective adaptations given adversarial parental relationships

Attachment Patterns for Lesbian/Gay Individuals with Unaccepting Parents

Research has often considered how lesbian/gay parents affect straight children, but few studies have focused on how heterosexual parents affect their lesbian/gay children. Romantic partners for lesbian/gay individuals, compared to heterosexuals, may be a unique source of support against rejection sensitivity and attachment insecurity arising from unaccepting parents. The results of this study suggest that lesbian/gay individuals’ experience of parental rejection when coming out affects their rejection sensitivity and parental attachment. Moreover, parental attachments differentially predict romantic attachment patterns across sexual orientation, with lesbians/gays dissociating their romantic attachment from their parental attachment in a manner not observed for heterosexuals

Misery Implicitly Loves Company: Implicit Homophily and Bully Victimization

This study focuses on the formation of bullied individuals’ friendships and romantic relationships. Individuals bullied in their past may be more likely to form connections with those who share similar oppressive experiences. Thus, we investigated the possibility that implicit homophily underlies the formation of interpersonal relationships amongst previously bullied individuals. Moreover, we investigated whether these individuals were aware of their friends’ and romantic partners’ similarly oppressive experiences prior to initiating the relationship. Our findings suggest that the young adults in our sample bullied in grade school are significantly more likely to have a close friend and or significant other who also experienced bullying. The findings of this study contribute to the relatively small, yet growing, body of research on implicit homophily, add to research extending homophily processes to bullies and victims, and are in line with research suggesting that deselection (a form of induced homophily) can coexist with homophily by personal preference

Housing Type and Introversion-Extraversion Predict College Roommate Conflicts

This article investigates conflict frequency and outcomes of college roommates as a function of housing type (dorms vs. apartments) and extraversion. By having roommates provide their initials and those of their roommate, we were able to match roommates for dyadic analyses. The results showed that respondents living in apartments reported more conflicts, and worse conflict outcomes, compared to those who reside in dorms. However, those living in dorms spent more time away from their roommate than those in apartments. Moreover, extraversion was positively associated with conflict for students living in apartments, and dyadic analyses revealed that respondents reported more conflict when they had introverted partners

[Published] - Love is Not Colorblind: An Investigation of the Racial Hierarchy of Mate Preferences

[Please see published material] - Not my type is the usual invocation when rejecting potential lovers who don’t align with the racial hierarchy of mating preferences. The largely unchallenged norm of interracial intimacy aversion, particularly how the desire for some racial groups and rejection of others reinforces existing racial inequities, is inconsistent with the blanket notion of greater interracial acceptance. Our investigation assessed the openness of monoracial and multiracial individuals to form interracial romantic relationships. We partially replicated an interracial mate preference known as the Multiracial Dividend Effect, finding that most monoracial groups equally preferred same-race lovers and interracially dating multiracials, and they preferred interracially dating someone multiracial over any monoracial group, whereas Multiracials were more open to interracially dating any monoracial group than monoracials were to interracially dating each other. In addition, Hispanic-White and East Asian-White multiracials were more open to interracially dating White individuals than their respective monoracial in-group members, and East Asian-White multiracials were more open to interracially dating all monoracial minority groups than monoracial East Asian participants. Finally, half-White multiracials are more likely to be in partial-racial couples (e.g., former President of the United States Barack Obama is Black-White multiracial and the former First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, is Black) whereas interminority multiracials are more likely to be in 100% interracial/non-overlapping couples (e.g., Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris is interminority Tamil Indian and Black whereas the Second Gentleman of the United States, Doug Emhoff, is White)