Religion, spirituality, and conflict between religious/spiritual and LGB identities: Associations with well-being and LGB identity dimensions

• Autor(a) principal: Fernandes, Marta Sofia de Sousa
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/21273
• topic: Religion; Spirituality; Sexual orientation; Identity conflict; Subjective well-being; Religião; Espiritualidade; Orientação sexual; Conflito identitário; Bem-estar subjetivo

Even though LGB individuals are usually less religious than the general population, religion and/or spirituality are still a part of many LGB people’s lives. As such, this dissertation focused on investigating the relation between religious/spiritual variables and subjective well-being, and dimensions of LGB identity; identifying correlates of the experience of conflict between religious/spiritual and LGB identities and comparing people who felt conflict with people who did not experience it, in terms of LGB identity dimensions, subjective well-being and outness. The participants were 126 LGB people, with 80 of them being female. No significant correlations were found between religious/spiritual variables and subjective well-being. Participation in religious ceremonies and private prayer were significantly and positively correlated with the LGB identity dimensions Acceptance Concerns, Concealment Motivation and Difficult Process and spiritual identification was significantly and negatively correlated with Internalized Homonegativity. Conflict between religious and LGB identities was found to be significantly and negatively correlated with outness to the world, overall outness and positive affect, and positively correlated with negative affect and the LGB identity dimensions Internalized Homonegativity, Difficult Process, Acceptance Concerns and Concealment Motivation. People who felt conflict between their religious and LGB identities were found to have higher scores on Difficult Process, Acceptance Concerns, Concealment Motivation and Identity Centrality, than those who did not experience it. The present dissertation was then able to contribute to the understanding of the religion and spirituality of Portuguese LGB people, and their experiences with this type of conflict.