Social Stigma and Sexual Minorities’ Romantic Relationship Functioning: A Meta-Analytic Review

PublishedArticleThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this record.To bolster knowledge of determinants of relationship functioning among sexual minorities, the current meta-analysis aimed to quantitatively review evidence for the association between social stigma and relationship functioning as well as examine potential moderators. Thirty-five studies were identified, including 130 effect sizes (39 independent; N = 10,745). Across studies, evidence was found for a small but significant inverse association between social stigma and relationship functioning. Furthermore, this association was moderated by stigma type (with more deleterious associations for internalized relative to perceived stigma) and dimension of relationship functioning (with more deleterious associations for affective relative to cognitive and negative relative to positive). Evidence for demographic moderators (region, sex, race, age) was generally mixed although important limitations related to unique characteristics of study samples are discussed. We conclude by highlighting the importance of social stigma for relationship functioning and point toward directions for future research and policy action.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: David Matthew Doyle is now a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University, supported by training grant, T32MH13043, from the National Institute of Mental Health

Love on the margins: The effects of social stigma and relationship length on romantic relationship quality

PublishedArticleThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this record.National data on romantic relationships reveal a prominent gap between members of devalued and dominant groups in the United States, with devalued group members experiencing less positive relationship outcomes. However, little research examines how social stigma affects relationship quality for members of devalued groups and moderating factors have generally not been explored in the literature. In the current studies, we experimentally examined the effects of social stigma on relationship quality among women (Study 1) and African Americans (Study 2) as well as whether these effects differed based upon relationship length (Studies 1 and 2). Results showed that individuals involved in shorter relationships reported lesser relationship quality after social stigma was made salient, while those involved in longer relationships reported somewhat greater relationship quality after social stigma was made salient. Implications for future research on social stigma and relationship quality as well as moderating factors are discussed.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Louisiana Board of Regents Grant (RA-547265) awarded to Lisa Molix

Reconciling associations between minority stress and sexual minority romantic relationship functioning

This is the final version. Available on open access from Frontiers Media via the DOI in this record. Cao et al. (2017) conducted a meta-analysis of the association between sexual minority stress and relationship well-being. Having published a similar meta-analysis (Doyle and Molix, 2015b), we were struck by a number of important similarities as well as critical differences in these two reviews, as other authors working on minority stress and sexual minority romantic relationship functioning have also been recently (e.g., Ballester et al., 2021; Vale and Bisconti, 2021). Here we aim to reconcile discrepant findings with regard to conceptual and methodological differences between the two reviews. Additionally, we aim to contribute to a broader discussion of understanding overlapping meta-analytic reviews (Siontis et al., 2013; Helfer et al., 2015). In order to integrate findings from these two reviews, for illustrative purposes we began by conducting a second-order meta-analysis using the psychmeta package in R (Dahlke and Wiernik, 2018). For reasons discussed in detail later, we conducted a “bare bones” second-order meta-analysis using uncorrected first-order meta-analysis estimates weighted by the number of primary studies included (Schmidt and Oh, 2013), shown in Table 1. Overall, the combined estimate of the effect of minority stress on sexual minority relationship functioning across these two meta-analyses was small but statistically significant, r = −0.144, 95% CI (−0.157, −0.132), echoing the importance of understanding minority stress processes for research on sexual minority romantic relationships. We continue to refer to the results of our “bare bones” second-order meta-analysis as we discuss similarities and differences in the two reports

Stigma Consciousness Modulates Cortisol Reactivity to Social Stress in Women

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.The aim of the current study was to examine whether stigma consciousness shapes cortisol responses to social stress among women in the lab. Undergraduate women (N = 45) completed background measures and then participated in a public speaking task, with assessments of cortisol prior to the stressor as well as 20- and 40-minutes post stressor onset. Results from multilevel models revealed that women higher in stigma consciousness evidenced blunted cortisol reactivity following social stress across the study session compared to women lower in stigma consciousness. This interaction was robust to adjustment for a number of covariates, including demographic (e.g., age), physiological (e.g., menstrual cycle) and psychological (e.g., depressive symptomatology) factors. Potential explanations for observed cortisol patterns are discussed, including hypo-reactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and elevated anticipatory stress. To conclude, implications for health disparities research are considered