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Acculturative stress is commonly experienced among Latinx immigrants in the United States who may feel pressured to maintain their heritage cultural norms and beliefs and/or adopt norms and beliefs of the dominant culture. The present study examined longitudinal relations between acculturative stress and endorsement of traditional Latina gender role beliefs (i.e., marianismo). We determined strength of the relations and temporal precedence of acculturative stress and endorsement of marianismo across 3 time points during participants' initial 3 years in the United States using a random intercept cross-lagged panel model. Participants were 530 Latina young adult women (ages 18–23) recruited from Miami-Dade County, Florida. Results suggested that acculturative stress levels at Time 1 positively predicted endorsement of the Family Pillar belief at Time 2, but acculturative stress levels at Time 2 negatively predicted the Virtuous and Chaste and Subordinate to Others beliefs at Time 3. In terms of marianismo beliefs predicting acculturative stress levels over time, the Virtuous and Chaste belief at Time 1 positively predicted acculturative stress at Time 2, and the Silencing Self to Maintain Harmony belief at Time 2 positively predicted acculturative stress at Time 3. Findings suggest that the Family Pillar belief, or feeling responsibility for the family's unity, may be protective against acculturative stress over time. Endorsing certain gender role beliefs (i.e., Virtuous and Chaste, Subordinate to Others) may lead to greater acculturative stress, and Latina young adult women experiencing acculturative stress may alter their endorsement of marianismo beliefs in an attempt to resolve culturally conflicting stress experienced after immigration. This study suggests that Latina young adult immigrants' endorsement of certain traditional gender role beliefs may lead to experiences of acculturative stress, and recent immigrants may reduce or increase their endorsement of these beliefs in response to experiencing acculturative stress. Counseling interventions that focus on reducing acculturative stress may consider how the role of the family may be protective against stress. Attending to gender role beliefs in counseling may help facilitate a healthy transition to the United States for recent immigrants who may experience a peak in acculturative stress after immigration or may alter their endorsement of traditional gender role beliefs over time in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dignifying the colonizer and depreciating the colonized is a reflection of internalized colonial oppression (i.e., colonial mentality). The current study examined the effect of colonial mentality on depression symptoms in a sample of mainland Puerto Ricans (N = 352). A structural equation model was examined, in which colonial mentality was hypothesized to be directly and positively associated with depression symptoms. The proposed model also tested the indirect effect of colonial mentality on depression symptoms via acculturative stress. Results indicated that a full mediation structural equation model (SEM) had a better fit to the data than our hypothesized partial mediation model. Bias-corrected bootstrapping indicated that the effect of colonial mentality on depressive symptoms was mediated by acculturative stress. That is, colonial mentality increased the risk of experiencing depression symptoms in Puerto Ricans when they felt pressured to maintaining a connection with Puerto Rican culture and society and when they experienced rejection by the society they want to emulate (acculturative stress). The current results underscore the need for researchers and clinicians to consider and assess colonial mentality when conceptualizing depression symptoms among mainland Puerto Ricans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research generally supports that greater outness about one's sexual identity is associated with improved well-being, emerging evidence suggests that outness may have negative consequences for bisexual individuals. Yet, few studies have examined sexual identity as a moderator of the associations between outness and well-being, especially among youth. As such, the role of outness in the mental health of diverse sexual minority youth (including pansexual, queer, questioning, and asexual youth) remains unclear. Thus, we examined how the associations between outness and well-being differed as a function of sexual identity in a sample of sexual minority youth. Using data from the LGBTQ National Teen Study ( N = 11,225), we tested sexual identity as a moderator of the associations between outness and well-being (depression and self-esteem). In the full sample, greater outness was significantly associated with lower depression and higher self-esteem. However, these associations were significantly different for gay/lesbian versus questioning youth. Greater outness was associated with lower depression and higher self-esteem for gay/lesbian youth yet was associated with higher depression and was not associated with self-esteem for questioning youth. The association between outness and self-esteem was also significantly different for gay/lesbian versus bisexual youth. Greater outness was associated with higher self-esteem for both groups, but the association was stronger for gay/lesbian youth. These findings suggest that outness may have benefits for gay/lesbian and bisexual youth, yet it may have negative consequences for questioning youth. These findings can inform efforts to promote positive sexual identity development and wellbeing of sexual minority youth.