An empirical typology of Italian gays and lesbians

A sample fo 1440 gays and lesbians who answered to Multifactor Internalized Homophobia Inventory (MIHI; Flebus & Montano, 2012), Rosernberg's self-esteem scale, and a modified version of Beck's Depression Inventory were classified using the procedure outlined by Overall & Magee (1992), by dividing the sample into four subsamples and performing a cluster analysis (Ward agglomeration method) which yielded five groups. The five groups were consistently found in all four subsamples and were rated according to the level of homophobia. The group 5 has the highest level of hoomophobia, low self-esteem and a high level of depression. The five groups can be described and characterized by several social, domographic, and clinical variables: the most homophobic group tend to be workers or military personnel, divorced, with high religious practice and low educational level.