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Though notable progress has been made in protections for LGBTQ people in the United States, they are still disproportionately victims of discrimination and harassment. Activism efforts on behalf of LGBTQ communities by heterosexual, cisgender people-known as cishet allies-are critical to maintaining and gaining civil rights. Social justice praxis encourages people with privileged identities, such as heterosexuals, to act on behalf of and in coalition with LGBTQ communities. The current study conducted a thematic qualitative content analysis of open-ended self-report data about activist behaviors and beliefs of 249 self-identified cishet allies. Results describe: types of activism, events that sparked activism, motivators for activism, and barriers to activism. Findings show that educating self and others are key activist behaviors while social media usage may mitigate barriers, such as perceived lack of social support and time. Findings are discussed in context of sample limitations and future research directions are outlined.

In January of 2014 the Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol Act or, Amendment 64, went into effect in Colorado. Even though it was the first state to enact recreational legalization, attitudes towards marijuana use have been changing for decades. Prompted by medical marijuana legalization, studies have found mixed results in regards to the impact that legalization has on frequency of use and abuse. With college students having the highest rates of use in the United States (U.S.), whether legal or not, it was important to explore the impact that legalization has on this population. In the current study, rates of marijuana and alcohol use in college students before and after recreational legalization were explored. Data was collected in four waves from October 2013 to March 2015, to be able to determine the trends in marijuana and alcohol use, and relationship between the substances. In addition, grade point average was measured as a possible consequence of marijuana use. We found the frequency of marijuana use in Colorado college students is much higher than the national average t(94445)=24.424, p

The present study describes the development and evaluation of the Ally Identity Measure (AIM), a new instrument to assess the skills to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) persons, knowledge of the LGBT experience, awareness of LGBT oppression, and engagement in action among heterosexual allies to the LGBT community. Items were constructed based on prior qualitative and theoretical literature, revised by experts, and submitted to psychometric evaluation. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with data from 269 participants yielded 3 factors: (a) knowledge and skills, (b) openness and support, and (c) oppression awareness. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with a separate sample of 240 participants confirmed the stability of this 3-factor structure. Data with a third sample of 221 participants offered evidence of acceptable reliability (i.e., Cronbach’s alphas of .76 to .88). In an effort to assess convergent and discriminant validity, participants completed the AIM along with a number of other measures assessing personality factors, impression management, LGBT attitudes, and engagement in collective action. The AIM full-scale and subscales demonstrated good convergent (i.e., correlated positively with openness, r .27 to .39; affirming attitudes, r .45 to .68; and collective action, r .29 to .65; correlated negatively with social dominance, r .27 to .51 and right wing authoritarianism, r .18 to .45) and discriminant validity (impression management, r .00 to .07). The final 19-item version yielded 2-week test–retest reliability coefficients of .43–.82 in a sample of 54 individuals. Limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.

In recent history, heterosexual allies have played an integral role in promoting change for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations in the United States; however, questions have been raised as to what drives heterosexual allies to promote change via activism. To delineate factors important in engagement in activism, 207 self-identified heterosexual allies completed an online survey measuring components associated with LGBT activism using Bandura's (1986) model of triadic reciprocal determinism: personal factors (ally identity, social justice self-efficacy and outcome expectations, empathetic perspective taking, and gender) and environmental factors (social justice related supports and barriers, positive marginality, and education level) to predict behaviors (LGBT activism). A hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed a model accounting for 62% of the variance in LGBT activism, with dimensions of ally identification, social justice self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and education level emerging as significant predictors of engagement in activism behaviors. Empathetic perspective taking and social justice related barriers predicted lack of engagement in LGBT activism, however. Supporting the notion that personal and environmental factors simultaneously impact engagement in LGBT activism. (PsycINFO Database Record