The influence of shame in the psychological well-being of asexual people who experienced discrimination: A mediation model
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Research on sexual minorities has demonstrated that they face greater risks of experiencing poorer mental health due to minority stress factors, but there has been limited investigation into how these factors affect the well-being of asexual individuals. This study addressed this gap by examining whether shame played a mediating role in the relationship between discrimination and the mental health outcomes (i.e., social anxiety and psychological distress) of asexual individuals, as well as whether social support moderated the association between discrimination and shame. Data for this cross-sectional study were collected through an online questionnaire as part of the VisaJe project, which examined the stigmatization of sexually inexperienced emerging adults. Validated scales were used to measure the study variables among a sample of 177 asexual individuals aged between 18 and 42. Structural equation modelling revealed that social support did not have a moderating effect on the relationship between discrimination and shame. However, after controlling for variables such as social support, gender, developmental period and ethnic minority status, the results indicated that shame partially mediated the relationship between discrimination and psychological distress, and fully mediated the relationship between discrimination and social anxiety. These findings indicate that asexual individuals face similar pathways linking discrimination to mental health, mirroring those observed in other sexual minority groups, as they derogate from the norms of compulsory sexuality. However, general support may not serve as a protective factor for asexual individuals facing discrimination. The implications of these findings for future studies and professional practice are discussed.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.009 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.010 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".