Forgiveness: Moderating The Relationship between Shame Due to Heterosexism and Being Out

Individuals who live openly as lesbian, gay and bisexual (lgb) may experience discrimination and be stigmatized by heterosexuals, which may cause emotional distress (Szymanski, 2008). They quickly learn that homosexuality is a powerfully shameful condition that can lead to feelings of self-hatred that impact public health issues of suicide and substance use (Herek, 1991; Chow, 2010). Recently, studies suggest that forgiveness (the process of letting go of anger and resentment) can decrease depression, anxiety and anger (Thompson, Snyder, Hoffman et al., 2005), and promote wellbeing (McCarthy, 2008). We hypothesized that forgiveness would moderate the relationship between shame due to heterosexism and being out as an openly lgb person.

Our stratified ethnically diverse convenience sample of 48 gay men, 35 lesbians, and 28 bisexuals (n = 111; 65% European-American, 10% Latino/a, 11% African-American, and 14% Other) was recruited from Dallas-Fort Worth. Participants completed the Heartland Forgiveness Scale (α=.87; Thompson et al., 2005), Shame Due to Heterosexism Scale (α=.87; Dickey-Chasins, 2001) and rated their degree of Being Out. Participants reported an annual household income of $36,581 ($0-390,000; SD=$53,055), and on average were 30.8 years old (18-73 years, SD=12.09). We used a hierarchical linear regression analysis to test our model and found Forgiveness and Being Out accounted for 39% of variance in Shame Due to Heterosexism (adj. R2=.39, F (7, 103) =9.86, p<.001). A moderation analysis following the Kenny and Baron protocol revealed that forgiveness moderated the relationship between Being Out and Shame Due to Heterosexism (adj. R2=.39, F (8, 102) =5.31, p<.05).