Recent research, building on this earlier work on pessimism, has suggested that individuals who are exposed to stressors based on their stigmatized identity may, over time, develop a pessimistic explanatory style. In particular, stigma-related stress that is recurrent can ultimately be viewed as stable, pervasive, and uncontrollable. For those individuals who also believe they are responsible for these experiences (i.e., make an internal attribution), a pessimistic explanatory style is likely to develop. A nationally representative study in the Netherlands found that, relative to heterosexual men, sexual minority men exhibited lower self-mastery—the belief that one has control over what occurs in his life (Sandfort, de Graaf, & Bijl, 2003)—a construct that is closely related to pessimism (Peterson & Seligman, 1984). In turn, this lower self-mastery explained lower quality of life among the sexual minority men (Sandfort et al., 2003). Pessimistic women experience more distress following prejudice-inspired events than optimistic women (Kaiser, Major, & McCoy, 2004). Although this study did not specifically address sexual orientation, it provides evidence for pessimism as a moderator, but not mediator, of the stigma-distress association. Support for
