Attachment, Positive Feelings about Being a Lesbian, Perceived General Support, and Well-Being

Abstract

This study examined whether positive feelings about being a lesbian and perceived general support from others are two mediators between attachment (i.e., anxiety and avoidance) and three indices of well-being (i.e., higher levels of life satisfaction, fewer depressive symptoms, and lower levels of loneliness). Participants were 163 self-identified lesbians from different regions in the United States. The results from a path model analysis indicated that (a) positive feelings about being a lesbian mediated the relations between attachment (i.e., anxiety and avoidance) and life satisfaction, (b) perceived general support from others mediated the relations between attachment anxiety and all three indices of well-being, and (c) the associations between attachment (i.e., anxiety and avoidance) and three indices of well-being were also mediated by positive feelings about being a lesbian, followed by perceived general support from others. Moreover, the exploratory results from a multiple-group analysis revealed that the mediation model was invariant across the student samples and community adult samples.