Internalizing symptoms and affective vulnerability among heterosexual and sexual minority young adults

Objectives: Sexual minority young adults report higher rates of anxiety and depression, and affective vulnerability factors (i.e. anxiety sensitivity, distress tolerance, emotion dysregulation) may help explain these mental health disparities.

Design: The current cross-sectional study examined differences between sexual minority and heterosexual college students (n = 465; M_age = 19.84, SD = 3.51; 76.3% female) in anxiety, depression and affective vulnerability and whether affective vulnerability served as an explanatory mechanism in these associations.

Methods: Participants completed self-report measures for course credit.

Results: Sexual minority young adults reported greater anxiety, depression, anxiety sensitivity, emotion regulation difficulties and lower distress tolerance. There were also significant indirect effects for all three affective vulnerability variables for anxiety symptoms and for emotion regulation difficulties for depression symptoms.

Conclusions: Affective vulnerability, particularly emotion regulation difficulties, appears to serve as a mechanism through which sexual minority status is associated with anxiety and depression. Improving emotion regulation skills may help to reduce mental health disparities in this population.