Stigmatization And The Effect Of Social Stigma On Self-Esteem

Studies estimate that between one and nine million children in the US have at least one parent who is gay or a lesbian. It is almost impossible to retrieve an accurate count of homosexual parent families because many homosexuals do not openly speak up about their sexual orientation because of their fear of discrimination. There has been a steady rise in same-sex parenting partly due to the increase in availability for same-sex marriage. In many cases the children or child of the homosexual couples are biological children of one of the parents, and a growing count include the result of surrogacy, donor insemination, adoption and foster care. Some same-sex couples may decide to have children within their relationship, and others may decide to bring in children from previous same-sex unions. Researchers have looked at these aspects in terms of signs of social stigmatization and the …show more content…
Adolescents who perceived more stigmas had lower self-esteem, in comparison to those who perceived fewer stigmas. In addition, coping skills moderated the effect of stigma on self-esteem in three self-esteem areas. However, only one subtype of coping skills, that of decision-making coping, was found to moderate the relationship of perceived stigma and self-esteem in such a way that adolescents using more decision-making coping had higher self-esteem in the face of high perceived stigma.’ For the face of high perceived stigma, the adolescents with more effective coping skills had lower self-esteem. In the face of high perceived stigma, adolescents who disclosed more about their mother’s sexual orientation had higher self-esteem in the subscale of close friendship than those who disclosed less’