Abstract
Background
Mostly heterosexual adolescents experience heightened depressive symptoms compared to heterosexual adolescents, though prior comparisons with other sexual minority adolescents have been inconsistent and rarely used a comprehensive measure of sexual orientation.
Method
U.S. high school adolescents were considered mostly heterosexual if they either (a) self-identified as mostly heterosexual or (b) identified as heterosexual but reported same-gender attraction and/or sexual behavior.
Result
Depressive symptoms among both groups of mostly heterosexual adolescents were higher than exclusively heterosexual adolescents but similar to other sexual minority adolescents.
Conclusion
Mostly heterosexual adolescents may be at risk for depression like their other sexual minority peers.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the members of the Choukas-Bradley and Widman labs for their assistance with data collection and cleaning. We would also like to specifically thank Uma Balaji, Julia Friedman, Megan Kundra, Kendra Plummer, and Emma Stewart for their assistance with the preparation of this manuscript. Finally, we would like to thank Mitch Prinstein for his assistance with recruitment.
Disclosure statement
The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.