Kevin Leo Yabut Nadal

Personality psychology has long failed to integrate liberation and decolonial frameworks by ignoring how systemic oppression, cultural identities, and historical contexts shape personality development and change. Although humanistic psychologists have described how self-actualization and free will influence personality characteristics, liberation psychologists explore how critical consciousness and cultural affirmation can enhance wellness, purpose, and healing. Thus, this article introduces a theoretical taxonomy of oppression-based personality traits (OBPTs) and liberation-based personality traits (LBPTs), or enduring psychopolitical personality characteristics that develop in response to systemic discrimination, as well as the process of combating that discrimination. OBPTs emerge through chronic exposure to oppressive experiences, while LBPTs form as people actively challenge and unlearn societal injustices. Five pairings of OBPTs and LBPTs are presented: (a) subjugation versus reclamation; (b) individualism versus collectivism; (c) impostorship versus intrinsic legitimacy; (d) respectability versus radical authenticity; and (e) complicity versus social justice orientation. Further, this article conceptualizes externalized oppression and decolonization as types of volitional personality change by demonstrating how individuals can make intentional efforts to modify personality traits that are socialized through internalized oppression and colonization. Recommendations for theory, research, and liberatory praxis are discussed.

Asian American sexual and gender diverse youth experience bias-based stressors rooted in stereotypes and forms of oppression, which can contribute to coping behaviors like alcohol use. Few studies examine lifetime alcohol use with a focus on understanding heterogeneity within Asian American adolescents. The analytic sample included Asian American youth in 9^th through 12^th grade (N = 86,799) who completed the 2017-2019 California Healthy Kids Survey, a statewide, school-based survey. Exhaustive Chi-square automatic interaction detection was conducted using SPSS. Variables included exposure to sexual orientation and gender identity-based (SOGI) and race-based bullying and different social identities (ethnic, sexual, and gender identities and sex assigned at birth). Past-year SOGI-based bullying was reported by 11.2% of students and race-based bullying was reported by 18.8% of students. 19.6% of students indicated lifetime alcohol use, with higher rates among those in older grades (13.1% 9^th grade to 31.8% 12^th grade). Lowest lifetime alcohol use prevalence were among monoracial Asian American youth who were not the targets of bias-based bullying, while highest lifetime alcohol use rates were among youth identifying as multiracial and/or with a minoritized sexual orientation and experiencing bias-based bullying. Findings suggest bias-based victimization may lead youth to cope or attempt to fit in through alcohol use. Bisexual and multiracial youth, who are often marginalized from monoracial and monosexual communities also had high lifetime alcohol use prevalence. Future research should identify intersectionality-informed strategies to address the nuanced bias-based bullying experiences of Asian American sexual and gender diverse youth, particularly in school settings.

While previous studies have found significant relationships between racial microagressions, depression, and anxiety, few studies have examined the effects of racial microaggressions on traumatic stress. Furthermore, although trauma has been traditionally conceptualized as psychophysiological reactions to life-threatening events, the notion of racial trauma has been excluded, despite resulting in similar symptomatology. The current study utilized a correlational, cross-sectional design with a racially diverse sample of people of color (N=254) to investigate the relationships between racial microaggressions, racially- or culturally-related trauma, and trauma symptoms. Using hierarchical multiple regression analysis, results indicated that a greater frequency of racial microaggressions was significantly associated with greater traumatic stress symptoms, and that school or workplace microaggressions were the type of microaggression that was most associated with traumatic symptoms. Implications are discussed, including the need for counselors, psychologists, and helping professionals to consider racial microaggressions as traumatic events while using culturally-informed trauma-focused methods to normalize and empower people of color.

Presents an obituary for Felicisima C. Serafica (1932-2019). When Felicisima "Ping" C. Serafica became one of the first tenured Filipino American professors of psychology in the United States, she paved the way for many future generations. In 1956, Serafica moved back to the Philippines, where she helped establish one of the country's first hospitals for children with mental disabilities and the country's first interdisciplinary mental health clinic. She returned to the United States to complete her doctoral training in clinical psychology at Clark University, before becoming a faculty member at The Ohio State University (OSU) in 1977. As a faculty member in clinical child psychology, her work focused on children and youth-particularly those with learning disabilities and from racial minority backgrounds. She authored two books, Social Cognitive Development in Context (1982) and Mental Health of Ethnic Minorities (1990). She retired as Emeritus Associate Professor of Psychology in 2002. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, intentional or unintentional, that demonstrate bias toward members of historically marginalized groups. While numerous quantitative studies on racial microaggressions have emerged in recent years, studies on sexual orientation and gender identity microaggressions have been mostly qualitative—likely due to limited measures of anti-LGBTQ microaggressions. In this three-part study, the Sexual Orientation Microaggressions Scale (SOMS) and the Gender Identity Microaggressions Scale (GIMS) are introduced to empirically explore the multifaceted experiences of microaggressions toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) people and transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people. In Study 1 (N = 260), a principal components analysis yielded a five-factor structure of sexual orientation microaggressions; in Study 2, a new sample (N = 140) is used to confirm the utility of the SOMS. In Study 3, the GIMS is piloted with a sample of TGNC participants (N = 160). Implications for future studies are discussed.

Though the Supreme Court of the U.S. legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, heterosexism and transphobia has continued to manifest through many systems in the US — from lack of federal protection in employment non-discrimination laws to polices that prohibit transgender people from using bathroom and public facilities that match their gender identities. Heterosexist and transphobic discrimination have also persisted through interpersonal interactions — ranging from more overt forms (e.g., hate crimes, bullying) to more subtle forms of discrimination, otherwise known as microaggressions. Since 2008, there have been hundreds of articles written on microaggressions, with dozens focusing specifically on experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people. Qualitative and quantitative studies have revealed that LGBTQ people who experience microaggressions have reported negative outcomes like depression, low self-esteem, and trauma. This special issue aims to further Microaggression Theory by providing theoretical and empirical papers that focus on the manifestation and impact of microaggressions on LGBTQ people. Using an interdisciplinary approach, articles range in topic from intersectional identities, to health and psychological outcomes, to advancing research methods. Future studies regarding microaggressions and LGBTQ people are discussed- highlighting the influence of the changing landscape of heterosexism and transphobia within general society, as well as new dynamics that have formed and developed within LGBTQ communities.