This chapter is used to develop the framework of the study and the related literature that needed in this study is being arranged by the researcher. It was divided into coming out, workplace friendship and job satisfaction. Also, we will talk about the relationship between all variables.
Coming Out Basic Definition of Coming Out
Homosexual is a sexual orientation that describes sexual attraction or sexual behavior between members of the same sex (Sanders, Reinisch, & McWhirter, 1990). It has been a long time that the group of Homosexual seen as mental illness, guilt behavior, or destroy traditional culture in most of the eastern countries (Wong & Tang, 2003). In contrast, in the western history, the very beginning word that used to described this kind of book was “Homosexual”.
Homosexual was viewed as not only a physical or mental illness but also basically focused on the sexual behavior on males. (Wang, 1999) Homosexuality was originally defined as metamorphosis or deviation's behavior in medical system. As the same meaning that translated into Chinese, a large number of people thought it as a negative vocabulary.
In 1957, Hooker grouped some of gay together in order to observe the contrast with a group of their heterosexual friends and found that the expert just could not distinguish any differences between the testing two groups. Additionally, they also found that there were rarely differences in adjustment ratings of them. Referred to Gonsiorek (1995), Hooker’s study provided significant evidence that homosexual wasn’t an indication of psychological disturbance. This provided an important turning milestone for the study of gay men and
lesbians because it challenged the pervious theory that homosexual was considered as a mental illness (Gonsiorek, 1995).
Moreover, Chung (1998) has mentioned that there are two viewpoints on the meaning of Homosexual. One is essentialism and the other is constructivism. Essentialism assert that the Homosexuality have constant sexual orientation. They think that sexual orientation can present one person’s internal nature. One person belongs to one particular sexual orientation, which means that there are only two types of sexual orientation. If one person is not a Heterosexual then he will be a Homosexual (Chou, 1995). On the other hand, constructivism hold in different aspect. They think that sexual orientation is not fixed by one person, or we can call it “fluid.”
It can be considered as culture related to those complicate relationship of traditional power (Lin, 2001). American Psychiatric Association has already removed Homosexuality out of Psychological abnormality list on 15 December ,1973 (Rothblum, 2000).
A large number of researchers have concluded homosexual is a natural situation and some of them have pointed out that it had a relationship in our human beings’ origin, and it’s something about biology, hormones, heritability and genetics; to put it in other words, homosexuality was born in innateness (Alanko et al., 2010; Morgan, 2013). Bailey, Hoskins, Green, and Ritchie (2013) pointed that there was a high heritability rate in homosexual. Differ in heritability, arguments that homosexual was formed biologically, hormonally or genetically were put forward by various scholars (Rice, Friberg, & Gavrilets, 2012). It was not only partly genetic, but also related to a biologically reason. Goodman (1997) asserted that homosexual was a genetically heritable trait and tentatively identified a region of the X chromosome as the cause of same-sex sexual attraction. Other scholars had noted incidents of high heritability of homosexual (Bailey, Willerman, & Parks, 1991; Bailey & Bell, 1993; Bailey et al., 1999) that
implied that there was a biological/genetic (Blanchard, Zucker, Cohen-Kettenis, Gooren, &
Bailey, 1996) or hormonal (Schwartz, Kim, Kolundzija, Rieger, & Sanders, 2010; Blanchard, 2012; Alanko et al., 2010; Diamond, 2013) component to the same-sex sexual attractions of gay men.
Nowadays, Heterosexual is still the mainstream group all over the world while Heterosexual account for a minority. Obviously, it is definitely the truth that Homosexual being attached a “label” that some people have the reaction of homophobia, which means that the group of Homosexuality are being discriminated and despised (Warren, 2003; Wong & Tang, 2004).
Process of Coming Out
For gay or lesbian group, coming out is almost a struggling problem. They have to come out to lots of groups, such as friends, classmates, families or colleagues. Especially, it is very difficult to come out to their parents, but the most difficult challenge (Ben-Ari, 1995). Coming out is considered a complex process. For homosexual, some of them choose to come out as a gay or lesbian but still others want to keep this secret in mind and act like Heterosexual. Yet, the reasons why they choose to hide in the closet including: (1) irrelevance: feel that being gay matters little; (2) have no improvement but maybe there will be more discrimination more after coming out; (3) due to personal religious beliefs or rules (for example, being a Christian); and (4) politics reason: it may harm the gay community after choosing to come out (Bohan, 1996) Also, coming out is also a difficult process and the choice may be influenced by a wide range of reasons, for instance, the various individual character, social support.
Theories on the formation of homosexual identity and the coming out process have outlined through which an individual passed (Cass, 1979). According to Zera (1992), Cass
would be the pioneer to show a model of homosexual identity in 1979. Cass (1979) held on a theory that every person would experience six non-age-specific stages: (1) identity awareness- one person will find that he or she is different from others; (2) identity comparison- someone believes that he or she might be homosexual, but does his or her best to hide and conceal, acting to be heterosexual; (3) identity tolerance- someone discovers that he or she will be attracted by the same gender and he or she is homosexual; (4) identity acceptance- he or she starts to enter the gay community and tries to get more information that can be found; (5) identity pride- the person turns to be active in the gay community; and (6) synthesis- the person finally completely accepts himself or herself. Still, there are many other different models which had explained the reasons and processes that how a person identity themselves to be a gay or lesbian. De Cecco and Shively (1984) proposed three forms in which they identity formulation has been discussed about: biological, psychological, and socio-cultural. Ben-Ari (1995) and Bohan (1996) have proposed a study in when gay comes out to their parents, In the beginning, they focus on the functions of coming out, while the next part focusing on parents’ concerns their children’s incident of the disclosure.
Furthermore, even though there is a rising acceptance of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) group, a lot of researchers still devoting themselves continuing to emphasize about the safety issues after they choose to come out. Vargo (1998) has warned that if you want to come out, you should care about the potential familial, social, and financial problems.
Additionally, many researchers have advised the group of LGBT that after they establish the financial and housing stability should they come out but to avoid being kicked out from his or her parents’ home. (Savin-Williams, 1998).
It is thought that coming out is a complex process. Some people choose to come out, while others may hide in the closet by their own choice, such as keep it in as a secret or act as the Heterosexuality do. The coming out process is mostly designed by the people’s local culture.
In American culture, it is significant if one person he wants to build self-identity, then he is supposed to come out. Take Bohan (1996) for example, he pointed that there are multiple functions as coming out. It has not only therapeutically effectiveness, but also strengthens self-esteem and helps someone relieving isolation. On the other hand, the situation will be totally different. In Chinese culture, for example, one of the gay activist groups in Taiwan named “the Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association” argues LBGT group that “maybe choose to hide in the closet is also a good choice of being homosexual’. It surely points out that it is significant to keep consistency and friendship in relations of how we come out to our parents.
Workplace Friendship
There is a great deal of researches studying on workplace friendships which are well established right now (Bader, Hashim, & Zaharim, 2013; Berman, West, & Richter, 2002;
Chen, Mao, Hsieh, Liu, & Yen, 2013; Lincoln & Miller, 1979; Riordan & Griffeth, 1995; Song, 2006). Some of these studies focus on how workplace friendships can be related to improve organizational outcomes not only includes productivity but also performance (Berman et al., 2002; Shah & Jehn, 1993; Song, 2006; Song & Olshfski, 2008). Moreover, some of the literatures are focusing on improving the turnover rate of their employees (Feeley, Hwang, &
Barnett, 2008) and trying to help their own employees recognize and rebuild the latest organizational values (Gibbons, 2004). In the meanwhile, one of studies provides judgement on what reaction or behavior will these unique individuals do in a friendly workplace (Kram
& Isabella, 1985), with a large amount of high quality information shared (Sias, 2005), improve
the experience of boring and repeated work (Pettinger, 2005), protect individuals from being received workplace bullying (D’Cruz & Noronha, 2011) and develop women’s self- identities to challenge traditional and organizational patriarchy (Andrew & Montague, 1998).
As noted by Fehr (1996), he has defined workplace friendship as, “a voluntary, personal relationship typically providing intimacy and assistance” (p.20). The reason why there are various definitions of workplace friendship is that it is different from normal friendship that we usually call occurred in the workplace (Song, 2005). There was a definition from Berman et al. (2002) and he defined workplace friendship as “nonexclusive voluntary workplace relations that involve mutual trust, commitment, reciprocal liking and shared interests and values” (p. 218). It is said that workplace friendship is the appearance of things beyond behaviors engaged in friendly ways between people in the organization including trust, liking, interests and values sharing than rather only mutual acquaintances (Berman et al., 2002, p. 218).
It is considered that Workplace Friendship is quite valuable for not only individuals but also beneficial for organizations. Based on the theory of Fine (1986), Workplace Friendship will improve people to finish their jobs, reduce the stress which gained from their work, and provide the skill of communication, cooperation, and energy by increasing support and resources.
Hamilton (2007) has mentioned that when there is a friendship at your workplace, the employees in this organization may feel much more comfortable and pleased with their friends in the workplace and remove insecurity and uncertainty feeling that generating from themselves. Furthermore, they will put more empathies to their coworkers about the concerns and those work-related problems. Furthermore, Jehn and Shah (1997) have talked about that employees may have a positive attitude and gain enthusiasm that employees in a friendly workplace with encouragement, confidence, trust, respect, and critical feedback.
Recently, due to the progressing society and the changes of the legislation, the lives of gays and lesbians have already been changed and improved for many decades. To be honest, different sexual orientation groups are still experiencing some discriminations and social inequalities (Ozeren, 2014). For example, In United States, it can be easily proved from the investigation that up to 3.5% of the population identified themselves as LGBT (Gates, 2011).
Some of LGBT employees choose to conceal their sexual orientation rather than come out in the workplace (King, Mohr, Peddie, Jones, & Kendra, 2017). Moreover, choose whether to come out in the workplace is usually a struggling decision for them due to anxiety and being unable to get promoted (Ragins, Singh, & Cornwell, 2007; Trau, 2015).
It is reported that sexual orientation minorities are often discriminated by other people no matter they are in the workplace or life, and the result is that they might suffer from low self-esteem (Ellison & Gustone, 2009; Hunt & Jensen, 2007). At the same time, there are limited studies that focusing on gay men and lesbians. In other words, the current situation that sexual orientation minorities have gone through may gather less attention and the potential disadvantages may be ignored. Nowadays, the requirements of labor legislation and some related policies has been changed (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2009).
Meanwhile, due to the trend of legislation, Taiwan has been one of countries that start to focus on gender equality and gay marriage.
It is a very common experience that lesbian, gay, and bisexual, as the same meaning of LGB employees will face discrimination in the workplace. One study showed that up to 25%–
66% of LGB faced discriminative situation while they were working. Also, it is estimated that 44%–60% of them may fight for their own right not to deal with some discriminations in the future (Croteau, 1996). Another survey conducted by the Williams Institute in 2008 reported
that 38% of LGB employees had the experiences of being harassed, and 27% had been treated unequaled because of their sexual orientation (Sears & Mallory, 2011). Furthermore, one study conducted by the National Transgender Discrimination Survey estimated that 78% transgender employees got harassed at work, and 47% had the experience being discriminated even in the process of hiring, promotion, or job retention (Grant et al., 2010).
LGB employees usually suffer in discriminated issues in the workplace, and it may cause poor mental health, physical health, and job outcomes. There are a large number of researches indicated that if the workplace climate is much more LGB-supportive, it will have a positive mental health and job outcomes for them (Huffman, Watrous-Rodriguez, & King, 2008; Liddle, Luzzo, Hauenstein, & Schuck, 2004; Ragins & Cornwell, 2001; Waldo, 1999)
Job Satisfaction
It has been getting more focused on analyzing on job satisfaction for social researchers (Frey & Stutzer, 2002), and there is a great deal of researches have discussed to exploring the construction and conceptualization of job satisfaction. Locke (1976) defined job satisfaction as: “a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from an appraisal of one’s job or job experiences” (p. 1304). In terms of this conceptualization, Hulin and Judge (2003) proposed that job satisfaction is comprised of multidimensional psychological responses to individual’s job and responses includes cognitive, affective. An amount of research has demonstrated the influence of job satisfaction; in addition, the validity of these studies with regard to job satisfaction have proved that it’s an issue that is worth concerning with because of many factors (Saari & Judge, 2004). Green (2010) stated that job satisfaction could predict the resignation in the future. Drago and Wooden (1992) denoted that the responses of job satisfaction and the absenteeism of the employees have negative correlation with each other. A comprehensive
review conduct by Judge, Thoreson, Bono, and Patton (2001) found that the role of job satisfaction is a predictor of performance; put it differently, a worker who is of happiness can be seen as a worker who works effectively. Patterson, Warr, and West (2004) conclude the same perspective as the study mentioned above did. What is more, Mount, Ilies, and Johnson (2006) have mentioned that job satisfaction will make fairly influences on the relations between personality variables and work behaviors. Faragher, Cass, and Cooper (2005) conduct a analysis of 485 studies; the result of the analysis suggested that workers’ health could be influenced by the level of job satisfaction; in addition, the existing relations noted that it will also affect employees’ subjective well-being and the comprehension of factors making different workers feel satisfied can provide the most important labor market behaviors with a number of insights, such as productivity, absenteeism, and health behavior.
Because of the popularity of the research concerning job satisfaction, there are a good deal of researches developing the measurement to measure the effect of job satisfaction, such as the scale developed by Weiss, Dawis, and England (1967). This research used the scale mentioned above the measure job satisfaction.
There’s a dearth of research concerning job satisfaction of homosexuality; hence, this research intended to replenish the research gap of it.
Coming Out and Job Satisfaction
Recently, the group of homosexuality have focused more on their own rights and their self-awareness and there is a dramatically rising on the rate the. Nonetheless, whether to come out in their work place is a still being a very struggle problem for them. It is risky that after coming out in their workplace, they might have to deal with discrimination and being treated unequally. On the contrary, coming out will not only allow them to gain confidence but also
have positive motivation for work due to releasing the identity pressure. There are considerable researches studying on job satisfaction that focus sexes (Clark, 1997; Gazioglu & Tansel, 2006) and health conditions (Uppal, 2005; Pagán and Malo, 2009; Drydakis, 2012) on the heterogeneous effects. The current study has examined the link between men’s sexual orientation and job satisfaction by collecting data from the Athens Area Study (AAS).
This type of satisfaction that gay employees gain from their jobs could be considered as a performance of how they respond to their job characteristics, and still a lot of social scientists consider well-being to be one of their main concerns to get a better understanding what this group is, and then what the surprising discovery is that only two similar studies have been discussed about some relevant patterns. Carpenter (2005) using the 2003 Canadian Community Health Survey as a restriction to individuals living in three regions including Ontario, Newfoundland, and Saskatchewan, and the result provided evidences on various job satisfaction by sexual orientation. Although the researcher concludes that there is a statistically significant higher job satisfaction on gay, they have lower economic outcomes than normal heterosexual. On the contrary, lesbians show higher job satisfaction, though they have higher salary than those heterosexual women. Furthermore, we cannot make sure that there is any financial advantage existing among employees in their companies could directly influence more job satisfaction. Additionally, after three years doing more researches, Carpenter (2008) conducted the survey for those 22-27 years old Australian women, after that he had concluded some evidences that the group of lesbians are significant less satisfied with their work comparing to those heterosexual people. In fact, numerous literatures discovered that there is much stronger evidence of discrimination against gay men than lesbians. Badgett, Lau, Sears, and Ho (2007), Carpenter (2008), as well as, Drydakis (2011) discuss lots of correlated topics.
In truth, Clark (1997), Gazioglu and Tansel (2006) and Drydakis (2012) assess women to be more pleased with their work than men, the reason might because women have gained a better job place in the labor market; this is the so-called gender/job-satisfaction transliteration.
Gay estimations may be linked to this hypothesis (Carpenter, 2005).
Preceding studies have proved the facts that hiding homosexuality in their company would be harmful to individual’s well-being (Button, 2001; Fassinger, 1996; Griffith & Hebl, 2002;
Lane & Wegner, 1995; Levine & Leonard, 1984; Pachankis, 2007). Fassinger (1996) has proposed that lesbians’ experience in workplace and found that debilitating strain would be caused by means of maintaining secrecy, which would have repercussion on job satisfaction and universal mental health. The discussion above suggested that stay in the closet in the workplace, such as keep it in a secret, will have the consequence of lowering job satisfaction (Button, 2001; Griffith & Hebl, 2002); moreover, it will affect cognitive and emotional depletion (Lane & Wegner, 1995; Madera, 2010) Another recent discussion by Madera (2010) has the consensus of the same consequence that if someone hide his or her sexual orientation in the workplace, it would weaken the capability of one employee. In addition, there was a finding that there was a correlation among keeping secrecy and unhappiness (Maas, Wismeijer, Van Assen, & Aquarius, 2012), the result of this study mentioned that it is statistically high likelihood that employees who are of homosexuality consciously faking a heterosexual identity would grow the symptoms of being depressive, regarding the failure of presenting and could cause self-betrayal (Levine & Leonard, 1984).
The previous studies not only showed that the hiding homosexuality in the work has the negative influence on vocational health, but that they also demonstrated that hiding homosexuality in workplace is pertinent to better psychological well-being (Cain, 1991;