Loss of mental health support among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic has simultaneously exacerbated mental health concerns among college students and made it more challenging for many students to access mental health support. However, little is known about the extent of mental health support loss among college students, or which students have lost support. Participants: 415 undergraduate students who reported receiving mental health support prior to the pandemic participated. Methods: Students completed an online questionnaire between March and May of 2020. Researchers examined the extent of support loss and how support loss differed by demographic and mental health variables. Methods pre-registered at https://osf.io/m83hz. Results: 62% of respondents reported loss of mental health support. Loss of support was associated with more severe depressive symptoms (p < .001), more severe anxiety symptoms (p < .001), suicidal ideation (p < .001), and sexual minority identity (p = .017). Conclusions: Loss of support was common, especially among more vulnerable students.

College student interest in teletherapy and self-guided mental health supports during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened college students' mental health while simultaneously creating new barriers to traditional in-person care. Teletherapy and online self-guided mental health supports are two potential avenues for addressing unmet mental health needs when face-to-face services are less accessible, but little is known about factors that shape interest in these supports. Participants: 1,224 U.S. undergraduate students (mean age = 20.7; 73% female; 40% White) participated. Methods: Students completed an online questionnaire assessing interest in teletherapy and self-guided supports. Predictors included age, sex, race/ethnicity, sexual minority status, and anxiety and depression symptomatology. Results: Interest rates were 20% and 25% for at-cost supports (teletherapy and online self-help, respectively) and 70% and 72% for free supports (teletherapy and online self-help, respectively). Patterns emerged by age, anxiety symptom severity, and race/ethnicity. Conclusions: Results may inform universities' efforts to optimize students' engagement with nontraditional, digital mental health supports, including teletherapy and self-guided programs.The SARS-CoV2 (COVID-19) pandemic has taken a severe toll on public health, with effects reaching far beyond unprecedented illness and mortality. Levels of mental health difficulties appear to be rising broadly as the pandemic has progressed, both in the general U.S. population and among college students specifically.1,2 The COVID-19 pandemic and its repercussions may undermine college student mental health in myriad ways.2 Concurrently, students now face the potential for serious illness, loss of loved ones, financial strain, social isolation, loss of on-campus resources, and sudden disruption of routines-creating a "perfect storm" for the emergence or exacerbation of psychological distress.

Self-silencing Mediates the Relationship Between Rejection Sensitivity and Intimate Partner Violence.

Intimate partner violence, including physical, psychological, and sexual violence, affects over one-third of Americans and is particularly common among college students. Previous work has found links between rejection sensitivity and aggressive or hostile behavior (i.e., perpetration) in intimate relationships, but this construct has only been tested as a predictor of violence in an all-male sample. A related body of work has found relationships between self-silencing and rejection sensitivity, and between self-silencing and both hostile and ingratiating behavior. The purpose of this study was to bridge these related literatures and examine the relationship between rejection sensitivity and intimate partner violence experiences and the role of self-silencing as a possible mediator. To test these relationships, we collected survey data from a sample of college students (N = 410) at a large university in the northeast United States. Using mediation analyses, we found that rejection sensitivity predicted intimate partner violence victimization (i.e., being the target of violence) through self-silencing. Similarly, rejection sensitivity predicted intimate partner violence perpetration (i.e., being violent toward one's partner) through self-silencing. Neither gender nor race significantly moderated either path of the models. Implications of this study include incorporating individual difference variables in intimate partner violence research and programming.

The Mediating Roles of Rejection Sensitivity and Proximal Stress in the Association Between Discrimination and Internalizing Symptoms Among Sexual Minority Women.

The negative impact of discrimination on mental health among lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations has been well documented. However, the possible mediating roles of sexual orientation rejection sensitivity and rejection-based proximal stress in the association between discrimination and internalizing symptoms remain unclear. Rejection-based proximal stress is a subset of proximal stressors that are theorized to arise from concerns about and expectations of sexual orientation-based rejection and discrimination. Drawing on minority stress theory, we tested potential mediating effects using indirect effects structural equation modeling in a sample of 300 sexual minority women. Results indicated that the indirect effect of discrimination on internalizing symptoms (a latent variable indicated by depression and anxiety symptoms) through sexual orientation rejection sensitivity and rejection-based proximal stress (a latent variable indicated by preoccupation with stigma, concealment motivation, and difficulty developing a positive sexual identity) was significant. Additionally, the indirect effects of discrimination on rejection-based proximal stress through sexual orientation rejection sensitivity and of sexual orientation rejection sensitivity on internalizing symptoms through rejection-based proximal stress were also significant. These findings indicate that sexual orientation rejection sensitivity plays an important role in contributing to rejection-based proximal stress and internalizing symptoms among sexual minority women.

Essentialist beliefs: Understanding contact with and attitudes towards lesbian and gay individuals.

Sexual prejudice remains a widespread problem worldwide. Past research demonstrates that cross-orientation contact (contact between heterosexuals and lesbian/gay individuals) reduces sexual prejudice among heterosexuals, especially when contact is high quality. This study extends the literature on the relationship between cross-orientation contact and sexual prejudice and the mediation of this relationship by intergroup anxiety by examining the role of a key ideology - essentialist beliefs about homosexuality (immutability, universality, and discreteness beliefs). Findings indicate that the mediation of the relationship between cross-orientation contact and sexual prejudice by intergroup anxiety differs by level of essentialist beliefs. Additionally, the relationship between cross-orientation contact and sexual prejudice appears to be mediated by essentialist beliefs as well as intergroup anxiety. These results suggest that individuals who endorse essentialist beliefs commonly associated with increased bias (high discreteness and low immutability and universality beliefs) may benefit the most from cross-orientation contact and resultant decreases in intergroup anxiety. Further, decreasing essentialist beliefs generally associated with increased bias may be a mechanism through which cross-orientation contact reduces sexual prejudice. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Are Outness and Community Involvement Risk or Protective Factors for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Among Sexual Minority Women?

Sexual minority women (SMW) are at increased risk for substance abuse compared to heterosexual women. Two psychosocial factors that have been implicated in SMW's substance abuse are outness and LGBT community involvement, but findings have been mixed as to whether these are risk or protective factors. One possible explanation is that they may have different consequences for subgroups of SMW (lesbians, bisexual women, and queer women). While being open about one's sexual orientation and involved in the community may be protective for lesbians, discrimination against bisexual women may lead these same factors to contribute to substance abuse for bisexual women. It is unclear how these associations will operate for queer women, given limited research on this subpopulation. The current study examined whether sexual identity moderated the associations between outness and community involvement with alcohol and drug abuse. We also examined whether perceived discrimination would help explain why these associations may be different for subgroups of SMW. A sample of 288 self-identified SMW (113 lesbians, 106 bisexual women, and 69 queer women) completed an online survey. Higher outness was associated with higher alcohol and drug abuse for bisexual women, but not for lesbians or queer women. Similarly, higher community involvement was associated with higher drug abuse for bisexual women, but not for lesbians or queer women. Among bisexual women, the association between community involvement and drug abuse was mediated by perceived discrimination. Further, the association between outness and drug abuse was mediated by both community involvement and perceived discrimination. Findings demonstrate that outness and community involvement function as risk factors for substance abuse for bisexual women, in part due to their associations with discrimination.

Psychosocial Pathways to STEM Engagement among Graduate Students in the Life Sciences.

Despite growing diversity among life sciences professionals, members of historically underrepresented groups (e.g., women) continue to encounter barriers to academic and career advancement, such as subtle messages and stereotypes that signal low value for women, and fewer opportunities for quality mentoring relationships. These barriers reinforce the stereotype that women's gender is incompatible with their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field, and can interfere with their sense of belonging and self-efficacy within STEM. The present work expands this literature in two ways, by 1) focusing on a distinct period in women's careers that has been relatively understudied, but represents a critical period when career decisions are made, that is, graduate school; and 2) highlighting the buffering effect of one critical mechanism against barriers to STEM persistence, that is, perceived support from advisors. Results of the present study show that perceived support from one's advisor may promote STEM engagement among women by predicting greater gender-STEM identity compatibility, which in turn predicts greater STEM importance among women (but not men). STEM importance further predicts higher sense of belonging in STEM for both men and women and increased STEM self-efficacy for women. Finally, we describe the implications of this work for educational policy.

Unstable identity compatibility: how gender rejection sensitivity undermines the success of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.

Although the perceived compatibility between one's gender and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) identities (gender-STEM compatibility) has been linked to women's success in STEM fields, no work to date has examined how the stability of identity over time contributes to subjective and objective STEM success. In the present study, 146 undergraduate female STEM majors rated their gender-STEM compatibility weekly during their freshman spring semester. STEM women higher in gender rejection sensitivity, or gender RS, a social-cognitive measure assessing the tendency to perceive social-identity threat, experienced larger fluctuations in gender-STEM compatibility across their second semester of college. Fluctuations in compatibility predicted impaired outcomes the following school year, including lower STEM engagement and lower academic performance in STEM (but not non-STEM) classes, and significantly mediated the relationship between gender RS and STEM engagement and achievement in the 2nd year of college. The week-to-week changes in gender-STEM compatibility occurred in response to negative academic (but not social) experiences.

In Pursuit of the MD: The Impact of Role Models, Identity Compatibility, and Belonging Among Undergraduate Women.

Women continue to face gender-related challenges in the medical field in places around the world where it has traditionally been male-dominated, including in the U.S. In an online experimental study with women attending a mid-sized public university in the Northeastern U.S. (N= 55) who were interested in pursuing a pre-medical track (being pre-med) as undergraduates, we explored the mechanisms involved in undergraduate women's pursuit of a career as a physician, focusing on three factors: exposure to successful female physician role models, perceived identity compatibility between being a woman and being pre-med, and sense of belonging in pre-med. Participants were randomly assigned to an experimental condition in which they were exposed to information about successful female physicians, or to a control condition in which no information about female physicians was provided. First, as hypothesized, participants exposed to successful female physicians reported higher perceived identity compatibility, sense of belonging, and interest in a medical career compared to those in the control condition. Second, also as hypothesized, perceived identity compatibility mediated the effect of role models on sense of belonging, and sense of belonging mediated the relationship between perceived identity compatibility and interest in a medical career. This study highlights three key factors in women's pursuit of a career as a physician and the process through which these factors may operate. Findings support the use of role models to set a positive psychosocial process in motion that can support women's persistence in medicine.

Gender-based rejection sensitivity and academic self-silencing in women.

Building on prior work on rejection sensitivity, we propose a social-cognitive model of gender-based rejection sensitivity (Gender RS) to account for individual differences in how women perceive and cope with gender-based evaluative threats in competitive, historically male institutions. Study 1 develops a measure of Gender RS, defined as anxious expectations of gender-based rejection. Studies 2-5 support the central predictions of the model: Gender RS is associated with increased perceptions of gender-based threats and increased coping by self-silencing--responses that reinforce feelings of alienation and diminished motivation. Study 2 shows that Gender RS is distinct from overall sensitivity to rejection or perceiving the world through the lens of gender. Study 3 shows that Gender RS becomes activated specifically when gender-based rejection is a plausible explanation for negative outcomes. Study 4 provides experimental evidence that Gender RS predicts lower academic self-confidence, greater expectations of bias, and avoidance of opportunities for further help from a weakness-focused expert evaluator. Study 5 tests the Gender RS model in situ, using daily diaries to track women's experiences during the first weeks in a highly competitive law school. Implications for women's coping with the subtle nature of contemporary sexism are discussed as well as the importance of institution-level checks to prevent the costs of gender-based rejection.

Rejection sensitivity and the defensive motivational system: insights from the startle response to rejection cues.

Rejection sensitivity (RS) is the disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection. This study used the startle probe paradigm to test whether the affect-based defensive motivational system is automatically activated by rejection cues in people who are high in RS. Stimuli were representational paintings depicting rejection (by Hopper) and acceptance (by Renoir), as well as nonrepresentational paintings of either negative or positive valence (by Rothko and Miro, respectively). Eyeblink startle magnitude was potentiated in people high in RS when they viewed rejection themes, compared with when they viewed nonrepresentational negative themes. Startle magnitude was not attenuated during viewing of acceptance themes in comparison with nonrepresentational positive themes. Overall, the results provide evidence that for people high in RS, rejection cues automatically activate the defensive motivational system, but acceptance cues do not automatically activate the appetitive motivational system.