Sexual Orientation Competence: Psychologists’ Perceived Competence and Relationships to Multicultural Competence, Training, Engagement, and Exposure to Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Individuals

Attitudes toward sexual orientation, specifically towards those who identify as lesbians, gay men, and bisexual (LGB) individuals, have varied temporally. Given the pervasiveness of heterosexism in American culture, it becomes quite important to understand if we, as psychologists, could unintentionally create heterosexist environments with our clients. This study looked at the following research question: What are the unique contributions of the predictor variables: exposure to persons of sexual minority status, training experience in sexual minority populations, perceived multicultural competence, and engagement in sexual minority specialization and practice to the criterion variable perceived sexual orientation competence within United States (US) licensed psychologists