Testing a Social Cognitive Model of Workplace Sexual Identity Management

Abstract

Lent and Brown proposed a social cognitive career self-management process model that extended prior social cognitive career theory (SCCT) content models to explain the conditions under which people will engage in career management behaviors (e.g., career exploration). We tested the SCCT self-management model in the context of workplace sexual identity management. The model hypothesizes that engagement in sexual identity management strategies in the workplace is facilitated by strong sexual identity management self-efficacy beliefs and positive outcome expectations for engaging in sexual identity management behaviors. The model also posits that additional person and contextual variables will influence engagement in sexual identity management behaviors directly as well as indirectly via self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations. Using a sample of 152 sexual minority participants drawn from community Internet mailing lists, partial and full mediation models of workplace sexual identity disclosure were tested using theoretically relevant person input (i.e., concealment motivation) and contextual (i.e., workplace climate) variables. Results supported a partially mediated model suggesting that concealment motivation and workplace climate influence workplace disclosure directly as well as indirectly through self-efficacy and positive outcome expectations. Policy and social justice implications for the results are discussed and future research directions are considered.

Self-Employment in Later Life: How Future Time Perspective and Social Support Influence Self-Employment Interest

“…This study contributes to the career and entrepreneurship research in several ways. The findings contribute to our understanding of late career interest in an often overlooked group (older workers), adding to the growing body of recent SCCT research among differing social classes (Flores et al, 2017), race and ethnicities (Ali and Menke, 2014; Dickinson et al, 2017), sexual identities (Tatum et al, 2017) and older workers (Wöhrmann et al, 2013; Garcia et al, 2014). Additionally, the findings support the applicability of SCCT to late career, revealing that older individuals develop late career interests in what they believe they can do and where they anticipated a favorable outcome (Bandura, 1986).…”

A survey of negative mental health outcomes, workplace and school climate, and identity disclosure for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and asexual veterinary professionals and students in the United States and United Kingdom

“…Concealing one's sexual orientation or gender identity has been linked to heightened psychological distress and a greater risk of depressive symptoms. [22][23][24] Concealment may also require additional expenditures of emotional labor, a term originally de-veloped to describe the experiences of client service professionals. 25 Emotional labor can be separated into 2 components: surface acting and deep acting.…”

Disclosure of stigmatized identities at work: An interdisciplinary review and agenda for future research

“…In regard to pregnant employees, having organizational policies centered around creating a supportive work–family culture predicted heightened acts of disclosure (Jones et al, ). Working in a supportive organizational climate was also positively related to LGBT employees' self‐efficacy beliefs about disclosure, which in turn was related to increased disclosure decisions (Tatum, Formica, & Brown, ). Thus, one way that a supportive climate can affect the decision to disclose is by increasing employees' confidence in their ability to disclose to others.…”