Assessing Politicized Sexual Orientation Identity: Validating the Queer Consciousness Scale

Building on psychological theories of motivation for collective action, we introduce a new individual difference measure of queer consciousness, defined as a politicized collective identity around sexual orientation. The Queer Consciousness Scale (QCS) consists of 12 items measuring five aspects of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of homosexuality 2017-01, Vol.64 (8), p.1069-1091
Main Authors: Duncan, Lauren E., Mincer, Elizabeth, Dunn, Sarah R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activism
Adolescent
Adult
ally
Authoritarianism
Blame
Civil rights
Collective action
Consciousness
Discontent
Dominance
Female
gay rights
Gender Identity
group consciousness
Group identity
Homosexuality
Human Rights
Humans
Identity
Individual differences
LGBTQ
LGBTQ people
LGBTQ rights
Liberalism
Male
Measures
Middle Aged
Motivation
Motivation theory
personal political salience
Personality Tests
political consciousness
Political participation
Politicization
politicized collective identity
Politics
Power
Predictions
Predictive validity
Psychological theories
Psychological Theory
queer
Reliability
Reproducibility of Results
Right wing politics
Sex differences
Sexual and Gender Minorities
Sexual Behavior - psychology
Sexual orientation
Sexuality
Test-Retest reliability
Variables
Young Adult
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Description
Summary:Building on psychological theories of motivation for collective action, we introduce a new individual difference measure of queer consciousness, defined as a politicized collective identity around sexual orientation. The Queer Consciousness Scale (QCS) consists of 12 items measuring five aspects of a politicized queer identity: sense of common fate, power discontent, system blame, collective orientation, and cognitive centrality. In four samples of adult women and men of varied sexual orientations, the QCS showed good test-retest and Cronbach's reliability and excellent known-groups and predictive validity. Specifically, the QCS was positively correlated with identification as a member of the LGBTQ community, political liberalism, personal political salience, and LGBTQ activism and negatively correlated with right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation. QCS mediated relationships between several individual difference variables and gay rights activism and can be used with both LGBTQ people and allies.
ISSN:0091-8369
1540-3602
DOI:10.1080/00918369.2016.1236599