Assessing Homosexual Stress

The present study was designed to replicate and extend an existing technique for assessing homosexual stress using Personal Construct Theory. In addition to using difference scores between present and homosexual self-ratings on subjects' personal construct rating dimensions to determine homosexual stress, difference scores between ideal and homosexual selves were also studied to determine if this method would represent a more accurate assessment of homosexual stress. Levels of homosexual stress were obtained for each subject from each technique and were correlated with attitudes toward homosexuality. The influence of construct meaningfulness and level of homosexual stress on attitudes toward homosexuality was also explored to determine if higher stress on more meaningful constructs yields more negative attitudes. The results of this study revealed that each stress technique was significantly and equivalently positively correlated with negative attitudes toward homosexuality. Homosexual stress was found to be independent of the meaningfulness measures used but positively correlated with authoritarianism.