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Abstract
In a heteronormative society, self-disclosure of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) identities to others is a unique and crucial communication experience for LGB individuals. While a handful of studies indicate that disclosure messages vary in communicative features, few theories or empirical studies to date have examined why and how people produce different coming out messages. This dissertation develops the Theory of Coming Out Message Production (COMP) to address the research gap. Guided by theoretical and empirical work on sexual identity development, self-disclosure, and goal-driven message production, COMP identifies the salience of disclosure goals, internalized homophobia, and relational power as disclosure antecedents that predict disclosure message features, which are indexed by message depth, breadth, duration, and emotional expressions. As the driving force of the disclosure process, goal salience is also theorized to moderate how internalized homophobia and relational power predict degrees of sexual orientation disclosure. Moreover, the three disclosure antecedents jointly predict target outness discrepancy, which reflects the extent to which people want to change their current outness levels toward the disclosure receivers. Higher target outness discrepancy, in turn, increases degrees of disclosure. To test its propositions, COMP is applied to predict degrees of initial coming out. Results supported the hypotheses and found that higher degrees of initial disclosure predict higher self-esteem and fewer depressive symptoms. A content analysis of the initial coming out conversations also showed that people follow certain scripts (e.g., initiating, preparing, revealing, elaborating, and concluding) when initially come out to others. To extend its scope, COMP is further employed to predict the extent to which individuals discuss with their same-sex partners about revealing the relationships to others, or degrees of coming out talk. Results supported the utility of COMP in predicting degrees of coming out talk, which positively predict relationship satisfaction. Overall, this project indicates that goal salience, internalized homophobia, and relational power influence message features of same-sex attraction disclosure, which yields personal and relational outcomes. The development of COMP contributes to existing theories. Results of the empirical studies suggest practical guidelines for LGB individuals and same-sex couples to decide and enact disclosures of their stigmatized identities.