Questionnaire data about criminal victimization experiences were collected from 2,259 Sacramento-area lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (N = 1,170 women, 1,089 men). Approximately 1/5 of the women and 1/4 of the men had experienced victimization because of their adult sexual orientation. Hate crimes were less likely than nonbias crimes to have been reported to police. Compared with other recent crime victims, lesbian and gay hate-crime survivors manifested significantly more symptoms of depression, anger, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress. They also displayed significantly more crime-related fears and beliefs, lower sense of mastery, and more attributions of their personal setbacks to sexual prejudice than did nonbias crime victims and nonvictims. Comparable differences were not observed among bisexuals. The findings highlight the importance of recognizing hate-crime survivors' special needs in clinical settings and in public policy.

This article describes a social psychological framework for understanding sexual stigma, and it reports data on sexual minority individuals' stigma-related experiences. The framework distinguishes between stigma's manifestations in society's institutions (heterosexism) and among individuals. The latter include enacted sexual stigma (overt negative actions against sexual minorities, such as hate crimes), felt sexual stigma (expectations about the circumstances in which sexual stigma will be enacted), and internalized sexual stigma (personal acceptance of sexual stigma as part of one's value system and self-concept). Drawing from previous research on internalized sexual stigma among heterosexuals (i.e., sexual prejudice), the article considers possible parallels in how sexual minorities experience internalized sexual stigma (i.e., self-stigma, or negative attitudes toward the self). Data are presented from a community sample of lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults (N ϭ 2,259) to illustrate the model's utility for generating and testing hypotheses concerning self-stigma.

This article describes a social psychological framework for understanding sexual stigma, and it reports data on sexual minority individuals' stigma-related experiences. The framework distinguishes between stigma's manifestations in society's institutions (heterosexism) and among individuals. The latter include enacted sexual stigma (overt negative actions against sexual minorities, such as hate crimes), felt sexual stigma (expectations about the circumstances in which sexual stigma will be enacted), and internalized sexual stigma (personal acceptance of sexual stigma as part of one's value system and self-concept). Drawing from previous research on internalized sexual stigma among heterosexuals (i.e., sexual prejudice), the article considers possible parallels in how sexual minorities experience internalized sexual stigma (i.e., selfstigma, or negative attitudes toward the self). Data are presented from a community sample of lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults (N ϭ 2,259) to illustrate the model's utility for generating and testing hypotheses concerning self-stigma.

Using interview data from a convenience sample of 450 lesbian, gay, and

The Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) was constructed to assess specific strategies identified in the clinical literature for the evaluation of malingering. Two studies were conducted to evaluate the discriminant and concurrent validity of the SIRS. Study 1, with a simulation design, compared 40 simulators with 34 outpatient and 41 community controls using the SIRS, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), and M test. Test results established (a) a high level of discriminability between simulators and controls, and (b) general support for hypothesized relationships of SIRS with MMPI validity indicators and M Test scales. Study 2, with a known-groups comparison design, compared 25 suspected malingerers with 26 psychiatric inpatients from the same assessment unit. Nine of the 13 SIRS scales effectively discriminated between the two groups in the expected direction with excellent interrater reliability. In general, suspected malingerers in Study 2 endorsed similar response patterns as simulators in Study 1.Research has led to a serious questioning of clinicians' ability to accurately identify individuals who are deliberately exaggerating or fabricating symptoms associated with a mental disorder. For example, Rosenhan (1973) found that pseudopatients were not identified as malingerers, despite their deliberately atypical presentation. In addition, when staff were alerted to the possibility of malingering, many false positives were likely to occur (Rosenhan, 1975). Use of psychological test data to identify malingerers has yielded, at best, a mixed array of findings (for reviews,

Although violence based on sexual orientation is now widely recognized as a serious problem in the United States, social science data concerning the prevalence and consequences of such crimes are limited. In the present study, questionnaire data about victimization experiences were collected from 147 lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (74 females, 73 males) in the Sacramento, CA area. In addition, 45 of the respondents participated in a follow-up interview. Forty-one percent reported experiencing a bias-related criminal victimization since age 16, with another 9.5% reporting an attempted bias crime against them. The distribution of bias-related victimization and harassment experiences in the sample resembled patterns reported in other U.S. surveys with similar samples. Compared to other respondents, bias-crime survivors manifested higher levels of depression, anxiety, anger, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress. Methodological and substantive issues in empirical research on hate crimes against lesbians and gay men are discussed.

Research has demonstrated the usefulness of the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) for the accurate classification of those feigning mental illness. In this study we examined the eifects of coaching (i.e., providing a general description of bona fide psychiatric disorders with implicit guidelines on how to minimize detection) on subjects' ability to fake a serious mental disorder. Two important findings emerged: (a) Coached subjects were able to modify their responses on all SIRS scales designed to assess malingering, and (b) despite these changes, the SIRS maintained its discriminability (i.e., 96.7% of inpatients and 84.6% of simulators). The implications of these findings for other measures, such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, are discussed.

The Canadian government has introduced numerous policies, guidelines, and mandates at the federal and provincial levels that recognize woman abuse as a serious social problem and violation of the law. Nonetheless, recent feminist research continues to expose laws and practices that fail woman abuse victims. The present study examined the experiences of women victims in domestic violence cases and the barriers they faced in dealing with the police, the courts, and social service agencies. Despite government initiatives, the study results corroborate previous findings indicating that many battered women feel further traumatized by ambivalent or discriminatory attitudes and practices prevalent within the system.