No abstract

Hypervigilance is an individual's heightened awareness to threat or potential threats in their surroundings, may be context specific, and may be associated with negative mental health outcomes. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ)-identified individuals may experience hypervigilance related to their stigmatized status. There are few measures of general hypervigilance and no measure of LGBTQ-specific hypervigilance. A sample of LGBTQ-identified individuals (N = 378) was recruited for an online survey. Using exploratory structural equation modeling, we examined the factor structure of 13 items related to where (locations and contextual conditions) and around whom hypervigilance occurred, and 12 items assessing hypervigilant behaviors. Three-factor models were indicated for each set of items. Individuals experienced hypervigilance around strangers, conservative/religious people, and in work settings; they reported hypervigilance as social withdrawal, identity concealment, and scanning behaviors. Individuals who experienced one type of hypervigilant behavior also tended to report other types of hypervigilant behavior. Some group differences by gender identity, sexual identity, and racial/ethnic identity were found; specifically people of color and transgender and nonbinary (TNB) individuals tended to experience more hypervigilance than White and non-TNB individuals, respectively. Expected associations were found between the proposed factors and fear of negative evaluation, depressive and posttraumatic stress symptoms, and satisfaction with life. The suggested factor structure and scales will assist researchers and practitioners in identifying possible LGBTQ-specific hypervigilance and points of intervention.

Contemporary racial inequities rooted in historically biased systems (e.g., policing) have largely been confronted by those directly affected. We argue, however, that the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic created a context that led many White Americans to recognize the direct impact that systems and structures have on individuals – particularly in the case of systemic anti-Black racism. This recognition was accompanied by large-scale confrontation actions (in the form of mass protests) throughout the US. The current article uses the Confronting Prejudiced Responses (CPR) model to outline conditions that fostered White Americans’ shift in awareness surrounding racial inequity and the consequences of this perception change. Furthermore, we describe how reactions to confrontation efforts may depend on the messenger, message, modality and audience. Finally, we provide recommendations for individuals and organizations to support confrontation efforts aimed at reducing biased behavior and policies.

Agency and Communion, the Big Two of social perception, appear to have unique subdimensions, but they have differed across studies and not all may be relevant for understanding gender stereotypes. Across two sets of studies (Total N = 1,648), we examined self-and group gender stereotypes using Abele and colleagues' (2021) conceptualization of agency as a vertical dimension that conveys information about social status and communion as a horizontal dimension that conveys information about approaching groups and individuals. Group stereotype analyses suggested that the vertical dimension comprised assertiveness/dominance and ability subdimensions, whereas the horizontal dimension was unidimensional. In contrast, self-stereotype analyses suggested that the vertical dimension comprised assertiveness/dominance and independence subdimensions and the horizontal dimension comprised a single nurturance subdimension-a unique morality subdimension did not emerge. As expected, women were perceived and rated themselves as higher on the horizontal dimension (group stereotypes), more nurturing (self-stereotypes), and less assertive/ dominant (both group and self-stereotypes) than men. Gender differences in nurturance and assertiveness/dominance were stronger, as expected, among individuals whose gender was salient. We discuss implications for examining gender stereotypes and the potential consequences of misspecifying the Big Two as unidimensional.