Article Review 2- Bridget Thomas

Bridget Thomas

H WGST 202

Article Review #2

November 4, 2014

Kwon, Paul. “Resilience in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Individuals”. Personality and Social    Psychology Review (2013): 2-14.

            In “Resilience in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Individuals,” Paul Kwon discusses resilience factors within lesbian, gay, and bisexual communities. One resilience factor discussed in Kwon’s article is social support, as social support has the capability to decrease LGB individuals’ negative responses to prejudice. When social support purposefully validates and accepts people’s sexual orientation, it is successful in generating resilience to common forms of discrimination against LGB individuals. Furthermore, LGB individuals are able to sustain good psychological health when challenged with prejudice through the use of resilience factors such as hope and optimism. Kwon’s main point is that LGB individuals demonstrate resiliency when they are able to process through and accept emotions that are associated with the adverse effects of prejudice that occurs within our society.  

            Research has shown that social support is discernably accompanied with improved psychological and physical health within LGB individuals. This research has indicated that health and happiness are fostered via the endorsement  of “social connectedness” and “stress buffering”, as LGB individuals are thus given an outlet with which to experience acceptance and process their emotions when emotion-provoking stimuli occurs. Greater physiological arousal and greater amounts of distress are experienced when people are taught to repress their emotions. Given the conglomeration of research, Kwon suggests that emotional openness, which is the ability to accept and process through emotions, safeguards individuals within the LGB community from the distressing effects that come with unfortunate familiarities with prejudices.

            A determined pursuit of goals, the envisaging of a better life, and concentration on a better future are additional and effective resilience factors for coping with stress related to prejudice. Across the general population, hope and optimism are associated with resilience to negativity. Kwon writes, “Hopeful individuals are able to continue their pursuit of goals when faced with environmental obstacles. Hope and optimism may allow LGB individuals to persevere despite encountering minority stress” (3). Resilience factors like social support, emotional openness, hope, and optimism instill a better sense of self-worth, security, and meaning for LGB individuals, therefore contributing to an overall healthier psychological and interpersonal functioning. 

                  Kwon’s article relates to Stephen Onken’s article, “Conceptualizing Violence Against Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Intersexual, and Transgendered People”, in that the prejudice Kwon talks about can be considered a form of violence that Onken discusses. In my previous article review, Stephen Onken describes three levels of violence with the first being omission, or ‘failing to help someone in need’. The second, repression, or ‘depriving people of their rights’. The third, alienation, or ‘depriving people of self-esteem and identity’(8). Additionally, Onken defines the term ‘oppression’ as the ‘act of molding, immobilizing, or reducing opportunities which thereby restrains, restricts or prevents social, psychological, and/or economic movement of and individual or a          group’ (9). The prejudice that many LGB individuals face is essentially violence in the form of repression and oppression. In many ways, Kwon’s article is a way to cope with the problems brought to light by Onken. The information given in Kwon’s article gave me new insight into the best ways LGB people cope with, and rebound from, the prejudices, discrimination, and violence society poses against them. It would have been beneficial for Kwon to expand on and point out other forms of violence that LGB individuals face, in addition to prejudice. This would really drive home the fact that it is absurd that these people even need resilience factors such as social support, hope, and optimism to cope with the violence society imposes upon LGB people. 

-Bridget Thomas