Do coping styles moderate or mediate the relationship between internalized heterosexism and sexual minority women’s psychological distress? Psychology of Women Quarterly

The purpose of this study was to test tenets of both minority stress and lesbian feminist/sexual identity development theories by examining the potential moderating and mediating roles of individual coping styles (i.e., problem-solving and avoidant coping) in the relationship between internalized heterosexism and lesbian and bisexual (sexual minority) women’s psychological distress. Participants included 323 sexual minority women who completed an Internet survey. Results revealed that avoidant coping partially mediated the relationship between internalized heterosexism and psy-chological distress. No support was found for themediating role of problem-solving coping or for themoderating roles of problem-solving and avoidant coping in the link between internalized heterosexism and psychological distress. Feminist strategies that may be useful for clinicians working with clients to reduce internalized heterosexism are provided. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals can be targets of others ’ discrimination as well as their own internalized prejudices. Heterosexism refers to the ideological system that serves to stigmatize and reject any nonheterosexual identity or way of being (Herek, 2004), and internalized heterosexism refers to the process of internalizing nega-tive messages from experiences of heterosexism (Szyman-ski, 2006). These terms developed in response to concerns that prior terminology (e.g., homophobia, homonegativity, internalized homophobia, and internalized homonegativ-ity) inadequately described the external and internalized oppression experienced by LGB persons and/or focused on individual attitudes that did not recognize the institu-tionalized and pervasive nature of such beliefs in current culture (Szymanski, Kashubeck-West, &Meyer, in press a). Minority stress (e.g., Meyer, 1995, 2003) and lesbian fem-inist/sexual identity development theorists (e.g., Brown