that discrimination creates differential exposures to stress that may account for group disparities in mental health (e.g., Meyer, 2003; Pearlin, Schieman, Fazio, & Meersman, 2005), there are currently no models that explicate the general psychological processes through which social stressors related to sexual minority status ultimately produce mental health problems. The psychological mediation framework advanced in this paper therefore represents a particularly important application of general stress process models to the context of a distinct stressor (one that is related to stigma) and a specific understudied group (sexual minorities) evidencing disparities in stress-related psychiatric morbidity.
