The Effects of Bullying and Internalized Homophobia on Psychopathological Symptom Severity in a Community Sample of Gay Men

Bullying can have enduring effects on boys, with a lasting impact of depressive and traumatic symptoms. Gay adolescent males are particularly susceptible to bullying, and may be targeted at a higher frequency than heterosexual boys. This potentially heightens the experience of isolation and self-hatred that many gay adolescents report. It was hypothesized that (a) bullying experiences will increase depressive symptoms, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and posttraumatic growth (PTG), (b) internalized homophobia will mediate the relationship between bullying and the symptoms of depressive symptoms, PTSD symptoms, and PTG, (c) the relationship of bullying on internalized homophobia will be moderated by both parental social support and behavior specific self-efficacy, and (d) the model best predicting psychopathological outcomes and PTG will be a moderated-mediation path, with internalized homophobia mediating between bullying and the outcome variables, but moderated by self-efficacy and parental social support. Gay men were recruited from a variety of community settings (N = 90). Bullying had a direct effect on PTSD symptoms and PTG, but not depressive symptoms. Internalized homophobia also had a direct effect on PTSD symptoms separate from the influence of bullying. Moderation and mediation hypotheses were not supported. Results were best predicted by minority stress theory. Post hoc analyses found that PTG may act as a form of negative cognitive coping, and was found to mediate the relationship between the severity of bullying and PTSD symptoms. Cognitive coping contributed significantly to the minority stress model in accounting for the variance of PTSD symptoms in response to bullying. Results suggest that interventions with gay-identified men should target bullying and internalized homophobia as separate stressors that impact psychopathology symptoms.