| rdfs:comment | - Psychology was one of the first disciplines to study homosexuality as a discrete phenomenon. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pathological models of homosexuality were standard. Psychologists later began responding to the needs of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people including, most visibly, responses to the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s and 1990s. Major psychological research on homosexuality, which has been carried out predominantly in America, can be divided into five categories:
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| abstract | - Psychology was one of the first disciplines to study homosexuality as a discrete phenomenon. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pathological models of homosexuality were standard. Psychologists later began responding to the needs of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people including, most visibly, responses to the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s and 1990s. Major psychological research on homosexuality, which has been carried out predominantly in America, can be divided into five categories: 1.
* Why some people are gay or lesbian (Which factors determine that people have same-sex desires?) 2.
* Anti-gay attitudes and behaviors (What are the causes of discriminatory behavior regarding gays and lesbians and how can this be influenced?) 3.
* Psychological functioning (Does being gay or lesbian affect one's health status, psychological functioning or general well-being?) 4.
* Coming out as, and being, gay or lesbian (What determines successful adaptation to a rejecting social climate in gays and lesbians? Why do some gays and lesbians experience homosexuality as central to their identity, while others experience it as peripheral? Why do some gay men develop more effeminate behavior than others? Etc.) 5.
* Sexuality, intimate relationships, and parenting (How do children of lesbian and gay parents develop? What determines the attitude of gays and lesbians towards other (sexual) minorities? Etc.) Psychological research in these areas has been relevant to counteracting prejudicial ("homophobic") attitudes and actions, and to the LGBT rights movement generally.
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