Shame and Psychosocial Development in Religiously Affiliated Sexual Minority Women

Abstract

Shame and psychosocial developmental difficulties are issues of concern for many sexual minority women most likely due to the negative impact of heterosexism, internalized homophobia, sexual stigma, religious affiliation, and sexual minority stress. This study hypothesizes that religiously affiliated sexual minority women, when compared to non-sexual minority women, would show significantly higher levels of shame and lower levels of psychosocial development. This sample’s shame and psychosocial resolution scores all fell within the spectrum of normative levels for non-clinical samples of women. Significant differences between sexual status groups were found on shame and total negative psychosocial resolution, but effect size was small. It was also hypothesized that stages of psychosocial development, sexual status, and history of counseling would predict trait shame in religiously affiliated women. Psychosocial development was the sole significant and strong predictor, suggesting that the strong relationship between psychosocial development and shame is present regardless of a female’s sexual identity. For sexual minority women, identity/identity confusion, trust/mistrust, and autonomy/shame and doubt, accounted for 64% of shame variance. This sample was heavily weighted with women who reported same-sex attraction or same-sex behavior but who dis-identified as a sexual minority.