Associations Between Minority Stress and Daily Negative Affect: A Week in Sexual Minority Youth’s Lives

• In Event: 3-091 - Methodological Advances in Sexual Minority Youth Research: Developmental and Longitudinal Findings

Integrative Statement

Introduction: Research on mental health and minority stress has long focused on between-person differences among sexual minority youth or between sexual minority and heterosexual youth. For example, research has shown that, on average, sexual minority youth report poorer mental health compared to heterosexual youth. Further, research has shown associations between minority stress and mental health problems (Russell & Fish, 2016). Finally, longitudinal research has shown associations between minority stress at one time-point being associated with an increase of mental health problems over time (Burton et al., 2013). What is currently missing from the literature is research that incorporates a focus on so-called “within-person” variability in mental health, and whether longitudinal changes can be predicted by “state-like” measures of minority stress. The current study utilized a daily diary design, in which participants were asked to complete short online surveys for five consecutive days.
Method: A total of 66 sexual minority youth participated in the study (Mean age = 21.21, SD = 2.03). All participants completed an initial survey with questions about demographics, wellbeing, and minority stress, followed by daily measures of negative affect for five consecutive days. In the current study, measures of minority stress (expected rejection, internalized stigma, and victimization) and daily negative affect are included. Mixed (multilevel) linear regression is used to assess within-person changes in negative affect over time, and whether minority stress predicted variability in daily negative affect.
Results: About 18% of participants experienced one or more negative events related to their sexual orientation during the five days of the study. In addition, 90% of participants reported positive experiences with friends during the five days of the study. Overall, negative events were positively associated with expected rejection (r = .34, p = .006) and victimization (r = .24, p = .048), while positive daily events were negatively associated with expected rejection (r = -.45, p < .001).
Results of mixed linear regression analyses showed that there was significant variability of negative affect over time (p = .022). When adding in minority stress predictors, the results showed that expected rejection was associated with higher daily levels of negative affect (see Table 1). When added in separately, victimization was also associated with higher daily negative affect (p = .009), this association became non-significant in the final model.
Conclusion: The findings showed that over time, expecting rejection—also called vigilance—was associated with higher levels of daily negative affect. Worrying about being rejected and experiencing rejection might make youth more aware of their surroundings, and ultimately lead to feelings of fear, anxiety, and worthlessness. The current study is one of the first to assess “state-like” measures of minority stress and use these to predict daily variability in wellbeing. Although the association between minority stress and wellbeing has been shown in numerous studies before, the current study shows that minority stress is associated with daily variability in affect. Future research might look into the outcomes of chronic daily negative affect.

Author

• Laura Baams, University of Groningen
  Presenting Author