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On the association between sexual attraction and adolescent risk behavior involvement: Examining mediation and moderation.

Busseri MA, Willoughby T, Chalmers H, Bogaert AF

Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario L2S3A1, Canada. mbusseri@brocku.ca

On the basis of a large-scale survey of high-school youth, the authors compared adolescents reporting exclusively heterosexual, mostly heterosexual, bisexual, and predominately same-sex attraction based on high-risk involvement across a range of risk behaviors. Bisexual and same-sex attracted groups were characterized by heightened high-risk involvement relative to the other two groups. Mediation analysis was used to determine whether these group disparities were explained by a set of normative predictive factors spanning multiple life domains. Differences among a combined exclusively/mostly heterosexual attraction group and both the bisexual and same-sex attraction groups were attenuated (66% and 50%, respectively) after incorporating the hypothesized intervening predictive factors, providing evidence of partial mediation. Primary mediators included intrapersonal (attitudes toward risk-taking; academic orientation), interpersonal (peer victimization; parental relationships; unstructured activities), and environmental (substance availability) factors. Mediation results were consistent across participant age and sex. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

Published 15 January 2008 in Dev Psychol, 44(1): 69-80.
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