Positive States of Mind, Life Orientation, and Self-Esteem: Correlates of Perceived Stress in an Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Sample

According to the Minority Stress Model, minority stress is described as being related to the juxtaposition of minority and dominant values and the resultant conflict with the social environment experienced by minority group members, which in this study are the LGB participants (Meyer, 1995). We hypothesize positive states of mind, life orientation and self-esteem account for a significant proportion of the variance in perceived stress. 

Psychometrically sound instruments used in our study include: the perceived stress scale (a=.88) (Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983); the positive states of mind scale (a=.88) (Horowitz, Adler & Kegeles); the life-orientation test (a=.85) (Scheier, Carver & Bridges, 1994); and Rosenberg’s self-esteem scale (a=.91) (Rosenberg, 1965).

Our gender balanced sample (N=136) was primarily European American (61.8%), with a mean age of 32.5 years (SD=12.9, range=18-73). We found significant positive relationships between self-esteem and stress (r=.68, p<.001), a positive relationship between life orientation and stress (r=.61, p<.001) and a negative relationship between positive states of mind and stress (r=-.58, p<.001). After controlling for age, education, income, and ethnicity, a hierarchical regression analysis indicated our model accounted for 56.3% of the variance in perceived stress (F(10,125)=18.38, p<.001) with positive states of mind (b=-.25, t=-3.44, p=.001) and self-esteem (b=.41, t=4.1, p<.001) as significant predictors. 

For LGB individuals, positive states of mind and self-esteem are associated with perceived stress. Our results suggest that practitioners should use methods that should assess positive states of mind and self-esteem in treatment plans for stress reduction when working with these populations.