Under Pressure: associations between discrimination, expressive suppression, and coping drinking motives among sexual minority women.
Abstract/Description/Artist Statement
Within Minority Stress Theory, heterosexist discrimination has been linked to drinking to cope (DTC) motives, or drinking as a way to manage negative emotions. DTC motives are associated with heightened negative consequences from drinking. Prior research has found that high levels of expressive suppression (i.e., inhibition of ongoing emotion-expressive behavior) confer risk for coping motivated drinking. Given sexual minority women’s (SMW) elevated risk for DTC motives, examining expressive suppression and discrimination as correlates may address an important gap in literature. Thus, the current study examined expressive suppression as a factor impacting the relationship between external discrimination and coping motives among SMW. Undergraduate SMW drinkers (N=139, Mage=21.24, SDage=3.10, 93% cisgender female, 62% Bisexual, 52.8% White non-Latinx) completed measures of discrimination (HHRDS), expressive suppression (ERQ), and drinking motives (DMQ). After controlling for typical drinking, regression analyses revealed significant main effects of discrimination (b=1.37, p=.011, 95% CI [.203, .394]) and expressive suppression (b=0.26, p=.001, 95% CI [.101, .415]) on DTC motives. No moderation effect was observed; however, findings demonstrate a positive association between external discrimination and expressive suppression with DTC motives among SMW. Future studies may benefit from examining proximal stressors (i.e., internalized homophobia, internalized stigma) as a variable, rather than distal ones, as regulation strategies operate on internal emotion experiences. Therefore, examining whether expressive suppression strengthens the relationship between proximal stressors and DTC may be relevant.
Under Pressure: associations between discrimination, expressive suppression, and coping drinking motives among sexual minority women.
Within Minority Stress Theory, heterosexist discrimination has been linked to drinking to cope (DTC) motives, or drinking as a way to manage negative emotions. DTC motives are associated with heightened negative consequences from drinking. Prior research has found that high levels of expressive suppression (i.e., inhibition of ongoing emotion-expressive behavior) confer risk for coping motivated drinking. Given sexual minority women’s (SMW) elevated risk for DTC motives, examining expressive suppression and discrimination as correlates may address an important gap in literature. Thus, the current study examined expressive suppression as a factor impacting the relationship between external discrimination and coping motives among SMW. Undergraduate SMW drinkers (N=139, Mage=21.24, SDage=3.10, 93% cisgender female, 62% Bisexual, 52.8% White non-Latinx) completed measures of discrimination (HHRDS), expressive suppression (ERQ), and drinking motives (DMQ). After controlling for typical drinking, regression analyses revealed significant main effects of discrimination (b=1.37, p=.011, 95% CI [.203, .394]) and expressive suppression (b=0.26, p=.001, 95% CI [.101, .415]) on DTC motives. No moderation effect was observed; however, findings demonstrate a positive association between external discrimination and expressive suppression with DTC motives among SMW. Future studies may benefit from examining proximal stressors (i.e., internalized homophobia, internalized stigma) as a variable, rather than distal ones, as regulation strategies operate on internal emotion experiences. Therefore, examining whether expressive suppression strengthens the relationship between proximal stressors and DTC may be relevant.