Dr. Tyler Lefevor, assistant professor of psychology, and senior psychology majors Sydney Sorrell, Grace Kappers, and Ashley Plunk have co-authored a paper to be published in a forthcoming issue of The Journal of Homosexuality, which is a peer-reviewed academic journal.
The paper titled “Same-Sex Attracted, Not LGBQ: The Associations of Sexual Identity Labelling on Religiousness, Sexuality, and Health Among Mormons” was produced by students in Lefevor’s Psychology 350 course—Advanced Methods in Psychology: Randomized Experiments.
The results indicated that although same-sex attracted and LGBQ identities in the research signified different ways of navigating religiousness and sexuality, adopting one identity or the other had no impact on health outcomes in and of itself. Lefevor’s expertise includes helping individuals resolve conflicts and mental health challenges related to sexuality, gender, and faith.
“I’ve been doing research with Dr. Lefevor for two years now, and it’s something I am incredibly passionate about," says Sorrell. “I was able to travel to San Francisco this summer to present some of our labs research at the American Psychological Association’s national conference, and I also had the opportunity to present the project that will be published in The Journal of Homosexuality at the Tennessee Psychological Association’s annual convention this past month in Nashville, where the project won the third-place award for undergraduate research. I’m incredibly proud to be involved with this area of research, as it is something that is very personal for me, and it makes me feel like I’m actually making some sort of a difference.”