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This study was an initial investigation of important areas of interest within the literature on transgender and gender diverse students, namely psychological health, well-being and campus climate for transgender and gender diverse students in young adulthood. What is unique is that data were obtained from Christian transgender and gender diverse students attending Christian college and universities. A sample of 31 undergraduate transgender students at nine Christian institutions in which staff were affiliated with the Association for Christians in Student Development completed an online survey. Participants reported high levels of religiosity, diversity in their attitudes about gender identity, negative perceptions of campus climate, lower levels of social support for gender identity than in general, moderate to high levels of psychological distress, and low to moderate levels of psychological well-being.

Drawing upon previous research with sexual minority Christian college students, we identify emergent themes important to ministry with sexual minorities integrating religious/spiritual and sexual identities: intrinsic religiosity, social relationships, self-acceptance, and complexity of identity integration. We propose a Trinitarian ministry model wherein the church serves as a holding environment—a discipling community intentionally designed to be relational, secure, and formational thereby creating a synergistic communal climate for identity development related to faith and sexuality.

Studies on faith-based campuses are beginning to offer a glimpse into the real experience of sexual minority students in these unique settings. This study adds to this growing body of information by surveying 247 undergraduates, who describe themselves as sexual minorities at 19 Christian schools across the United States. They responded to questions related to attitudes regarding sexuality, sexual identity, religiosity, and sexual milestone events. The results from this sample suggest those who attend higher education at faith-based institutions are a distinctive group within Western culture when it comes to the development of religious/spiritual identity and sexual identity. Although diversity with regard to same-sex and opposite-sex attraction is present among those surveyed, common themes exist for this unique sample of undergraduates. Implications for mainstream culture and Christian educational institutions are discussed.

The study examined relationships between differentiation of self, sacred loss/desecration, and decisional or emotional forgiveness. A convenience sample (N = 437) completed an on-line survey. After controlling for impact of the event, impression management, hurtfulness, and religiousness, sacred loss/desecration partially predicted forgiveness. Sacred loss significantly predicted one measure of emotional forgiveness, and desecration significantly predicted two measures of decisional forgiveness and one measure of emotional forgiveness. Four differentiation of self scales were examined in separate hierarchical regression analyses as predictors of forgiveness, controlling for impact of the event, impression management, and hurtfulness. Each differentiation of self scale significantly predicted reduction of negative emotion, and two differentiation of self scales significantly predicted inhibition of harmful intention. Differentiation of self partially mediated the relationship between sacred loss/desecration and emotional or decisional forgiveness. Implications for clinical practice and future research are considered.

Previous investigations have demonstrated a relationship between endorsement of right-wing authoritarian (RWA) ideology and attitudes toward social and societal issues (e.g., abortion, drug use, affirmative action, and homosexuality). By contrast, the present studies examined the relationship between RWA and beliefs about matters of fact bearing on such issues (e.g., estimates of the prevalence of third trimester abortions, AIDS, concealed weapons). Studies 1 and 2 supported the propositions that high-RWA and low-RWA participants would show differences in their informational beliefs about sociopolitical matters consistent with differences in their respective ideologies and consistent with their putative differential cynicism about human nature. Study 3 demonstrated that the relationship between RWA and informational beliefs is amplified by the heightened salience of attitudes toward the targets of those beliefs. Language: en

This article describes the development of the Judgmental Self-Doubt Scale (JSDS), an individual difference measure of generalized mistrust of one’s judgment. Study 1 undertook the construction of the scale and demonstrated its high internal consistency. Studies 2 and 3 showed that greater judgmental self-doubt was associated, in anticipated ways, with a wide variety of personal dispositions. In Study 4, judgmental self-doubt was consistently associated with confidence in specific judgments concerning moral dilemmas, risk assessment, controversial societal issues, and societal parameters. In Study 5, the differential confidence of high and low self-doubters was greater following a task that required a difficult decision than it was following one that required an easy decision. The authors discuss ways in which doubt about one’s judgment, as assessed by the JSDS, is implicated in judgment-related behaviors and, more generally, in personality functioning.