Differences in Mental Health and Bullying Victimization Experiences between Youth of Different Sexualities: A Bayesian Perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACT Researchers have extensively investigated the differences in mental health and bullying victimization experiences of adolescents of different sexualities. Prior research has typically sought differences between heterosexual and non-heterosexual (homosexual and bisexual, combined) youth or between heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual youth. These two routes of research are based on different assumptions about where the differences lie. The current study is the first to compare the assumptions of these two routes of research. We transformed the respective assumptions to two competing hypotheses: the homogeneity hypothesis, which states that differences lie between heterosexual and non-heterosexual youth (homosexual and bisexual youth are thus considered a homogeneous group), and the heterogeneity hypothesis, which states that differences lie between heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual youth (homosexual and bisexual youth are not considered a homogeneous group). We administered a demographic form and a battery of questionnaires on mental health, mental illness, and on general and homophobic bullying to 757 Greek secondary education students. We used Bayesian statistics, because they allow comparing the support that two competing hypotheses receive from empirical data. The results provided more support to the hypothesis that there are differences in the mental health and bullying experiences between heterosexual and non-heterosexual youth. However, in some of the conducted comparisons, no conclusion could be drawn in favor of any of the two hypotheses.