#IamLGBT: Social Networks and Coming Out

Jan Gromadzki and Przemysław Siemaszko

No 06/2022, IBS Working Papers from Instytut Badan Strukturalnych

Abstract: In recent decades, the number of people disclosing their LGBTQ identity has increased substantially. We investigate the role of peer effects in coming out decisions using a model of a game social learning via networks. We use newly collected data from two waves of a spontaneous Twitter coming out campaign to test the prediction that observing peers coming out increases the probability of an individual disclosing their LGBTQ identity. We combine data on users' pre-campaign networks with the information on the exact time of costly coming out actions to construct a time-varying measure of the exposure to peers coming out as LGBTQ. A one standard deviation increase in the exposure increases the probability of coming out by almost 20%. We also exploit the non-overlapping network structure of users' peers groups as an exogenous source of variation, and we confirm the baseline results. We argue that the estimated effects are due to changes in beliefs about the costs of disclosure.

Keywords: LGBTQ; social networks; peer effects; social media; cultural change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 D85 J15 P16 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 84 pages
Date: 2022-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-net, nep-pay, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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