A Study on the Relationship Between Homosexuals' Coming-Out, Self-identity, Loneliness and Perceived Social Support

Abstract

Background: The long history of diversified population structure has brought the inclusiveness in Chinese culture, but in the other hand Confucian culture give birth to the conformism and moderation. The rapidly changing modern society and increasing opportunities to interact with different cultures have made the younger generation in China more open, but the overall environment has not receded to maintain and adhere to the traditional view of marriage and love, <i>only heterosexuality is normal</i>, has created cognitive clashes and more implicit social conflicts. In such a complex environment, homosexuals who have been outside the mainstream values for ages are apt to face more personal adaptability and mental health problems, which are more obvious in the two psychological qualities of self-identity and loneliness. Methods: We practiced mixed method to research, using perceived social support scale, loneliness scale, gay self-identity questionnaire and semi-structured interview questionnaire as tools, had measured 1962 individuals of different sexual orientation to carry on the survey, and deeply interviewed seven subjects including researchers, encode and establish models according to the collected information. Results: (1) Gay and bisexual men had significant gender main effect on self-identity, and female group had higher self-identity than male. Homosexuals' loneliness, social support and self-identity have significant residential landlord effects. The higher the level of residential area, the higher the self-identity. The higher the level of residential area, the higher the self-identity. The level of education affects the loneliness and perceived social support of individuals with different sexual tendencies (2) Perceived social support has negative correlation with loneliness in different groups the coefficient is 0.56-0.66, the higher the perceived social support the lower the loneliness. (3) Perceived social support mediated the relationship between coming out and loneliness, gender moderated the correlation of perceived social support and loneliness. (4) The phenomenon of gender role division exists in various kinds of the non-heterosexual group, and there is no unified operational definition, which can be evaluated through multi-dimensional evaluation. (5) Gender and age have effect on the behavior of coming out, senior female are the last group to come out, exactly contrary to the young men. Certain orders and stages consist in coming-out, in a general way, self-identity is the starting point of coming-out, and the process is influenced by social support, economic conditions, family and more factors.