Outness Inventory

Abstract

The Outness Inventory (OI), developed by Mohr and Fassinger in 2000, is a specialized psychometric instrument designed to measure the degree of disclosure regarding an individual’s sexual orientation across various spheres of life. It utilizes a 7-point rating scale to assess both the breadth (who knows) and the depth (how openly it is discussed) of disclosure to specific social groups. The scale is foundational for research examining the relationship between identity management, environmental stress, and psychological well-being among sexual minority individuals, particularly focusing on the multidimensional nature of outness.

Keywords

Outness, Sexual orientation, Disclosure, Identity management, LGBTQ+, Psychometric properties, Mohr, Fassinger, Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development.

Authors

Mohr, J., Fassinger, R.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Outness Inventory is to provide a standardized, quantifiable measure of an individual’s level of outness regarding their sexual identity. Unlike simpler dichotomous measures, the OI captures the nuance of disclosure by assessing openness across distinct social domains, recognizing that an individual may be fully “out” in one area (e.g., to friends) while being completely closeted in another (e.g., to family or religious community).

The instrument is crucial for researchers and counseling psychologists studying the differential impact of disclosure to key groups, such as family, peers, and religious entities, on the overall mental health, career satisfaction, and social support received by sexual minority individuals. It helps to differentiate between passive knowledge (someone knows but never discusses it) and active, open communication.

Construct

The central construct measured by the Outness Inventory is Outness, defined as the visibility and openness of an individual’s sexual orientation status to various people in their environment. The scale operationalizes this construct as a multidimensional variable, recognizing that disclosure is highly contextual.

The inventory is designed to capture three distinct, though correlated, dimensions of outness, which are calculated by averaging the scores of related items:

• Out to Family: Reflects disclosure to immediate and extended relatives.
• Out to World/Peers: Reflects disclosure within social and professional networks, including colleagues, supervisors, and acquaintances.
• Out to Religion: Reflects disclosure within one’s spiritual or religious community and leadership.

Validity

The validity of the Outness Inventory was established in the original 2000 publication by Mohr and Fassinger in the journal Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development. The scale demonstrated strong construct validity, confirming that the items effectively capture the theoretical components of sexual orientation disclosure across different social spheres.

Subsequent research has often utilized the OI to demonstrate predictive and criterion validity. For instance, scores on the OI’s subscales often predict outcomes such as reduced stress, lower levels of internalized homophobia, and increased utilization of social support resources, thereby validating its utility as a measure of identity integration and environmental management within the lesbian and gay male experience.

Reliability

The Outness Inventory exhibits robust reliability, particularly high internal consistency across its derived subscales (Out to Family, Out to World, Out to Religion). The original psychometric testing indicated strong Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients, suggesting that the items within each factor are highly interrelated and consistently measure the same dimension of disclosure.

This high level of internal reliability ensures that the instrument provides stable and consistent measurements of an individual’s disclosure status, making it a trustworthy tool for longitudinal studies examining changes in outness over time or in response to therapeutic intervention.

Factor Analysis

The development of the Outness Inventory involved rigorous factor analytic procedures, which confirmed the underlying structure of the scale. The factor analysis successfully extracted and confirmed the three hypothesized dimensions of disclosure (Out to Family, Out to World, Out to Religion) from the cluster of eleven original items.

This factor structure is critical because it allows researchers to investigate specific sources of stress or support associated with disclosure in distinct contexts. For example, the stress associated with being “out to religion” can be examined independently of the support derived from being “out to family,” providing a nuanced understanding of the psychological landscape of sexual minority individuals.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report questionnaire / Psychometric Scale

Format: 7-point Likert-type scale plus a Not Applicable (N/A) option.

Language Available: English (Original)

Population Group: Sexual minority individuals, including lesbian, gay male, and bisexual populations.

Age Group: Adults (Typically utilized with university students and working professionals).

Population Details: Individuals who are navigating the disclosure of their sexual orientation to various social networks and communities.

Test Methodology: Respondents rate their perceived level of openness and the extent of knowledge possessed by key people or groups concerning their sexual orientation status.

Keywords

Mohr and Fassinger, Disclosure, Stigma, Identity management, Counseling psychology, Social support, Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, Psychometric instrument.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not provided in source.

Correspondence Address: Not provided in source.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 2000

Permissions and Fees: The scale was published in an academic journal. Researchers seeking to utilize the scale should contact the primary authors, Dr. Mohr or Dr. Fassinger, or the publisher of Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development for official permissions and licensing agreements. The instrument is generally available for non-commercial academic research.

The original PDF containing the instrument and related dissertation material can be downloaded here: https://indigo.uic.edu/bitstream/handle/10027/9506/Gates_Trevor.pdf?sequence=1

Reference’s

• Mohr, J., & Fassinger, R. (2000). Measuring dimensions of lesbian and gay male experience. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 33, 66–90.
• Gates, Trevor. Grant. (2012). Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Workers in Chicago: Enacted Stigmatization, Stigma Consciousness, and Outness. Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago. PhD dissertation.

Items of the Outness Inventory

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Use the following rating scale to indicate how open you are about your sexual orientation to the people listed below. Try to respond to all of the items, but leave items blank if they do not apply to you.

1. person definitely does NOT know about your sexual orientation status
2. person might know about your sexual orientation status, but it is NEVER talked about
3. person probably knows about your sexual orientation status, but it is NEVER talked about
4. person probably knows about your sexual orientation status, but it is RARELY talked about
5. person definitely knows about your sexual orientation status, but it is RARELY talked about
6. person definitely knows about your sexual orientation status, and it is SOMETIMES talked about
7. person definitely knows about your sexual orientation status, and it is OPENLY talked about

N/A = not applicable to your situation; there is no such person or group of people in your life

• a) Mother
• b) Father
• c) Siblings (sisters/ brothers)
• d) Extended family (relatives)
• e) My New straight friends
• f) My Work peers
• g) My Work supervisor
• h) Members of my religious community (e.g. church, temple)
• i) Leaders of my religious community (e.g. church, temple)
• j) Strangers, new acquaintances
• k) My old heterosexual friends