Social neuroscience of depression: Developmental stage & sexual and gender minority (SGM) identities

 

Project Description:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recognize sexual and gender minorities (SGM) as a health disparate population for the purposes of research. The National Survey of Midlife Development data found stark contrasts in the past-year prevalence of major depression among 18 to 74-year-old Americans. Evidence suggests that internalized SGM identity stigma and identity concealment are significantly associated with depression among SGM people; yet our understanding of how these underlying pathways of risk contribute to disparately high rates of depression among SGM remains extremely limited. This pilot study aims to compare heterosexuals and SGM to examine potential mechanisms through which the social nervous system mediates and/or moderates sexual/gender identity stigma and identity concealment and social threat to increase risk for depression among SGM. In the first step, the researchers will record and analyze specific patterns of autonomic reactivity to visual stimuli via psychophysiological indices of heart rate variability, skin conductance response, and respiration that capture cortical-subcortical cognitive and affective physiological processing of SGM social threat and affirmation. Second, experimentally-induced suppression as a cognitive/affective coping mechanism, potentially influencing physiological arousal response patterns in identity stigma and identity concealment, will be tested. This will be done with the objective of comparing effects of brief suppression of SGM identity to a no suppression control condition on psychophysiological reactions to SGM-related negative, neutral, and positive stimuli.

 

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