Although research from the psychological mediation framework has been conducted with adolescent, young adult, and adult samples of sexual minorities, more research needs to adopt a life-course perspective in order to understand how different developmental processes can inform the relationships outlined in this framework. For example, developmental influences are particularly important in considering which general psychosocial processes to assess in research on mental health disparities in LGB individuals. Indeed, there are developmental periods during which certain psychosocial processes are more likely to be relevant. For example, one of the fundamental developmental tasks of adolescence is learning how to adaptively modulate negative emotions (Steinberg, Dahl, Keating, Kupfer, Masten, & Pine, 2006), making emotion regulation deficits particularly relevant sequelae of stigma-related stress during this period. Additionally, stressful events become more closely linked to the emergence of negative affect states during this period, rendering adolescents more emotionally vulnerable to the effects of stress (Larson & Ham, 1993; Larson, Moneta, Richards, & Wilson, 2002). As reviewed above, emotion regulation deficits accounted for the increased rates of internalizing symptoms among LGB adolescents relative to their
