Ian Meyer's Minority Stress Model: What It Is and What It Explains

Sometimes there are tensions between the values ​​of different groups and these are aggravated if there is an asymmetry between them.

Ian Meyer tries to explain this phenomenon through his model of minority stress. Next we will try to see it in detail in order to better understand its approach and the repercussions that this model entails for the understanding of this phenomenon.

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What is Ian Meyer's Minority Stress Model?

Ian Meyer's minority stress model is a system developed by this author to try to explain negative consequences on the mental health of persons belonging to minorities related to sexual orientation such as homosexuality or bisexuality, as a result of the conflict that is generated by the prejudices that people belonging to the majority group have about them.

What Meyer tried to explain through this model, created in 2003, is that these minority populations would be subjected to a series of stressors related to their sexual identity and the perception that people outside these groups have of them minority.

All that series of stressors, which we will see in detail later, would be increasing the possibilities to generate a psychological discomfort and therefore alterations in the mental and even physical health of these individuals. This is precisely what Ian Meyer's minority stress model tries to explain.

The key to this model is that affirms that the factors that generate stress for these minorities, act only in this direction, so they would not suppose any stressor towards the individuals of the majority. This issue creates an imbalance, since members of minority groups are affected by a series of of issues that only have a negative effect on them, compared to a majority that is alien to the problem.

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Stressors for minorities

Within Ian Meyer's minority stress model there are different issues that could fit as stressors for such groups. We are going to see some of the most important ones.

1. Previous experiences of prejudice

The first of the factors that may be affecting people according to Ian Meyer's minority stress model would be their own previous experiences in which the individual has experienced prejudice towards himself or other people due to his sexual orientation, that is, due to belonging to that minority group, in this case. These experiences have been lived a long time ago and have accumulated.

Each of these events acts as one more drop of stress that diminishes the individual until he is completely exhausted.Therefore, they produce a summing and increasingly intense effect of suffering on the person who is being stigmatized as a result of her sexual orientation. The memory of those past experiences supposes a discomfort that can lead to the deterioration of the mental health of the individual.

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2. Expectations of being rejected

All those negative experiences in which the person has been discriminated against due to his sexual preferences not only affect him from the past, but they also cause you a discomfort towards the future, since they are generating a series of expectations about what you can follow happening to him. That is to say, the individual who has already been rejected for his identity in the past, fears to continue being so in the future.

Therefore, this second factor within Ian Meyer's minority stress model has to do with the double victimization that victims of prejudice and stigmatization receive. And it is that not only have they suffered the pain of being rejected previously, but they also have the pressure of having to go through the same thing repeatedly in the future, with the stress that supposed.

3. Concealment

It is logical to think that if the person has experienced negative situations before and is also afraid that this will happen again in the future, he can take measures to prevent this from happening. On many occasions and in the absence of alternatives, they choose concealment. This translates into hiding their sexual identity socially, so that they avoid showing what they really feel and, ultimately, who they really are.

Of course, this situation is not straightforward. Giving up your own identity is extremely painful and stressful. Therefore, the strategy is ambivalent, since on the one hand the person is managing to avoid the discomfort generated by criticism from people in the majority group as a result of prejudice and stigmatization, but on the other is paying a high cost, which is to hide a very important part of yourself.

Moreover, sometimes concealment does not even have that falsely positive part of avoiding stigmatization, because even if the person conceals their sexual identity this does not prevent you from witnessing situations in which individuals from the majority group reject others in the group in some way minority. In this case, although the victimization did not happen in the first person, it has also affected the spectator.

So keep in mind that this factor in Ian Meyer's minority stress model causes discomfort in several ways. First, because the person is forced to renounce their sexual identity publicly. Second, because this does not prevent them from witnessing situations of victimization towards colleagues from their minority group or others. And third, because his concealment prevents him from coming out in defense of said victims, so as not to be exposed himself.

4. Internalized homophobia

In recent years there have been great social changes in favor of the acceptance of different forms of sexual identity. But This does not mean that there are no longer a series of homophobic ideas and beliefs in many people. More importantly, even in homosexual or other minority people, there may also be internalized homophobic ideas.

How can this happen? It is due to having been raised under specific schemes that, although they have collided head-on with one's own sexual orientation of the person, have been very present for a long time in the person's own beliefs individual. This factor from Ian Meyer's minority stress model would be yet another source of discomfort for these groups.

In this case individuals who experience this internalized homophobia and at the same time belong to minority sexual groups will suffer cognitive dissonance, as there will be an imbalance between the homophobic action (be it a comment, a quick thought or any other behavior) and his own identity. This process will increase the stress of these people.

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5. Coping processes

The last of the main factors that can generate discomfort within Ian Meyer's minority stress model refers to the processes of coping that the person can carry out to deal with acts of stigmatization received by individuals belonging to the group controlling. This behavior also has a negative counterpart.

In this case, Although the person tries to avoid being stigmatized, facing the situation actively, he encounters the possible conflict that this entailsTherefore, she is in the position of being victimized whether she does nothing or decides to do something about it. This means that in any of the scenarios there is uncertainty about the possible repercussions.

Therefore, the very fact of facing the situations that suppose a stigmatization also suppose a stressful way for the member of the minority group.

In conclusion

After having known in detail all the processes that underlie Ian Meyer's minority stress model, we can better understand what this author means by his approach. What all the factors that we have seen described have in common is that they would only be affecting those individuals whose sexual identity makes them fit into a minority group in that sense.

Therefore, the majority group, that is, the entire set of people who would not have this feeling of belonging to these groups, would not suffer the forms of stigmatization that have been listed and consequently would not be affected by the possible repercussions of this accumulated stress, which could translate into health problems at a psychological level and / or physical.

Bibliographic references:

• Frost, D.M., Lehavot, K., Meyer, I.H. (2015). Minority stress and physical health among sexual minority individuals. Journal of behavioral medicine. Springer.
• Meyer, I.H. (nineteen ninety five). Minority stress and mental health in gay men. Journal of health and social behavior. JSTOR.
• Meyer, I.H., Frost, D.M. (2013). Minority stress and the health of sexual minorities. C. J. Patterson & A. R. D'Augelli (Eds.), Handbook of psychology and sexual orientation. Oxford University Press.
• Meyer, I.H. (2015). Resilience in the study of minority stress and health of sexual and gender minorities. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity.