Sexual Minority Adolescents and Religious Identity Dissonance: Understanding the Stress and Management of Conflict Between a Religious Identity and Sexual Orientation Identity

Background and Purpose: Compared to their heterosexual peers, sexual minority adolescents (SMA) are more likely to report depressive symptoms and self-harm, and are over 5 times more likely to attempt suicide. Sexual minority youth who experience religious identity dissonance are at even greater risk for suicide compared to other sexual minority youth. These disparities are commonly attributed to minority stress, however a minority stress framework does not account for religious identity nor identity dissonance. An understanding of the stress experience of identity dissonance requires the appropriation of the identity frameworks of a theory that responds to dissonance; namely Cognitive Dissonance Theory (CDT). Using an intersectional qualitative approach, the purpose of this study was: to investigate the experience of identity dissonance sample of SMA, to identify cognitive strategies used to avoid or manage dissonance, and to determine the feasibility of using CDT to extend a minority stress framework into this area.

Methods: Thirty semi-structured interviews were conducted, Fall 2013 to Spring 2014, with SMA (ages 14 to 17), recruited from 3 community agencies serving SMA in the Los Angeles area. As part of the Institutional Review Board approved procedures, participants were able to give assent for participation. Participation involved a 90-minute recorded interview utilizing a Life History Calendar (LHC) approach. The chronological structure of the LHC increases participants’ ability to recall both events and associated feelings, and acknowledges the fluid aspects of sexual identity formation. Participants were given prompts to reflect on the experience of being a sexual minority given their identified race/ethnicity and religious background. Youth were asked to discuss any identity incongruence experienced and how this incongruence was managed. Recordings were transcribed verbatim and entered into QSR NVivo. All transcripts were coded by two members of the research team and went through a consensus process. Codes across transcripts were then examined using thematic analysis.

Results: Results indicated a high level of inter-rater agreement (91%). Participants were on average 16 years old. They identified with a diversity of racial/ethnic backgrounds (20% Asian, 16% African American, 36% Latino, 28% White). Most participants identified as male (44%) or female (40%) with a minority identifying as other (16%). Participants identified with a range of sexual orientations: 28% Gay, 24% Lesbian, 32% Bisexual, 16% as other. More than half of the sample endorsed experiencing identity dissonance. Participants indicated different cognitive strategies to manage identity dissonance (e.g. identifying hypocrisy in religious institutions). Further, racial/ethnic minority youth reported racial identity dissonance due to a strong connection between their racial identity and religious beliefs.

Conclusion and Implications: SMA employ several different cognitive strategies to create consonance between their sexual identity and their religious identities; some differences between racial/ethnic groups also existed. CDT offers a promising framework for understanding, measuring, and intervention with this minority stress. Future research directions include, development of a measure of identity dissonance, and quantitative investigation of the additive impact on mental health of minority stress dimensions with the inclusion of a new dimension of intrapersonal identity dissonance.