The Psych Note

  Additional Agents of Change in Promoting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Inclusiveness in Organizations Larry R. Martinez & Michelle R. Herl Brief Overview: The article describes 2 ways, and the reasonings, either LGBT or heterosexual employees can initiate the change themselves instead of relying on organizations' change, which can sometimes be a passive effort. Those ideas include having more employees coming out at work, which leads to the second point - having openly supportive heterosexual coworkers to facilitate the inclusive norm and positive experience of coming out. Some efforts heterosexual employees could do are: to never assume ones' sexual orientation and avoiding heteronormative language. Notes: *The article also mentioned Brooks and Edwards' (2009) qualitative study that reveals heterosexual peers could facilitate this inclusive workplace by being direct and open to zero tolerance of discriminating languages and give interpersonal support. Thi...

  Extending Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Supportive Organizational Policies: Communities Matter Too Laura G. Barron & Michelle R. Hebl Brief overview: This article further draws on King and Cortina's (2010) article on the importance of organizations fostering a supportive workplace. The article gathers information from all sources to make their claim of potential employees pick their jobs based not only on the company's inclusive atmosphere but also on the local community's. So only having an organization's inclusive policy and/or training is not enough. As workers spend a great deal of time outside their job and they tend to live close to the company they are working for. And since these companies have a great influence on the community, primarily because they provide a large number of jobs, companies should be urged to create an inclusive climate. Their direct impact on the community is prominent. It suggested some ways organizations can do just this,...

Becoming the "professors of lesbian love" Leila J. Rupp & Verta Taylor  Brief overview: The article is written by two lesbian professors, on their journey of becoming professors of lesbian love. They described the five major struggles/discrimination they encountered as being a woman, lesbian couple in academia. Including,  "discrimination in hiring, bias in tenure and promotion, exclusion from social and professional networks, devaluation of scholarly work on queer topics, and harassment and intimidation" (Rupp & Taylor, 2005, p. 30). Then, they described how they promoted an inclusive, LGBT space within their university. These include hiring lesbian colleges, as professors (authority figures to students) actively participated in LGBT movements, formed campus groups, mentored and encouraged students to conduct research in this area, and taught gay and lesbian courses.   Interesting notes: - Reading this article also made me realize that being able to read th...

 The Importance of Allies and Allied Organizations: Sexual Orientation Disclosure and Concealment at Work Jennifer L. Wessel Brief overview: This survey study examined three support systems: organization support, maximum support or key relations' support or allies, and average supportiveness of coworkers, as they relate to the likelihood of sexual orientation disclosure of LGB employees. LBG employees participant = 125, total coworkers in study is 371 (2.97 mean coworkers per participant). It concluded that the maximum support coworker and organizational support are two stronger predictors of disclosure than the average supportiveness of coworkers. With no significant difference in which one is the strongest predictor. So it is better to have one very supportive, advocative, and respected key coworker relation AND having an organization's policy support THAN having lots of coworkers who are on average supportive.  Interesting notes: - Quality of relationship > quantity...