Exploring the Characteristics of Adoptees Who Identify As Members of the Adoptee Community

Background & Purpose: Adult domestic adoptees in the U.S. have been organizing and establishing adoptee-led groups and communities since the 1970s, with a number of groups led by international adoptees established in the 1990s that crystallized a sense of an adoptee community. Since the 2010s, the growth of online spaces for adoptees to connect through social media platforms has proliferated, and since the 2020 pandemic, virtual online events and meeting spaces have also expanded. Scholarship about adoptee groups is emerging, yet research to understand the nature of who participates and relationship to well-being are less known. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to present exploratory findings from a national study of adult adoptees (18+) in the U.S. in order to understand the characteristics of adoptees who participate in adoptee-led groups and communities.

Methods: Community based participatory methods utilizing a decolonizing methodological paradigmatic approach were used to engage with U.S. based adoptee groups in developing study questions, pilot testing, and distributing an online survey to adult adoptees. Cross-sectional survey data of a sample of 337 adoptees collected in the spring of 2023 included measures of: demographics (age, gender, race), adoption (type of adoption, age at adoption), prosociality scale, trauma (adverse childhood experience/ACEs, traumatic life events checklist), mental health (brief symptoms inventory, complex trauma symptoms) and identity (racial/ethnic, critical consciousness). ANOVA and correlation tests were conducted to investigate the relationship between demographics, mental health, identity, and the extent (from not at all to extremely) one identifies as a member of the adoptee community. Hierarchical regression models included demographics, ACEs, stressful life event scale, prosocial scale in model1, depressive symptoms, complex trauma symptoms in model2, race, and critical consciousness in model3.

Results: Adoptees in early middle age (35-49) (F=15.855, p<.001), women (F=10.861, p<.001), Asian (F=20.337, p<.001), and international adoptees (F=14.245, p<.001) were more likely to identify as a member of the adoptee community. Bivariate analyses found greater identification as a member of the adoptee community were correlated with adoptees who experienced more ACEs (r=.130, p<.05), less adult stressful events (r=-.200, p<.001), more prosociality (r=.398, p<.001), and more critical consciousness (r=.358, p<.001). Hierarchical regression analyses found that greater exposure to cumulative traumatic life events (b=.135, p<.05), more prosociality (b=.021, p<.01), less depressive symptoms (b=-.196, p<.05), and more critical consciousness (b=.019, p<.01) were related to greater identification as a member of the adoptee community.

Conclusions & Implications: Findings suggest common characteristics among adoptees who identify with the adoptee community. Consistent with literature on mutual aid groups, adoptees who identify as a member of the adoptee community showed more prosociality and critical consciousness; however, given the cross-sectional nature of the data, the direction of this relationship will need to be determined by future research. Understanding the characteristics of adoptees who identify with the adoptee community can elucidate who participates and ultimately how such participation may be beneficial.