(PS9-66) Systems and Invalidation: A Novel Measure of Systemic Discrimination and Its Relation to Emotional Invalidation Predicts Mental Health Outcomes

Systemic discrimination may relate to perceived emotional invalidation, which could account for negative mental health outcomes by enforcing social expectations that label distress following minority stressors as disproportionate, inaccurate, and unwarranted. An indirect effects model was estimated to test this hypothesis of whether perceived invalidation accounted for the relationship between systemic discrimination and internalizing psychopathology as well as suicidal ideation (SI). A sample of adults (n = 212) with at least one minoritized identity based on race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and disability (78.8% people of color, 37.7% non-heterosexual, 8.5% gender expansive, and 18.4% identifying with a disability) was collected throughout 2023 and 2024 from a southeastern U.S. university. A structural equation indirect effects model was estimated using robust maximum likelihood with perceived invalidation tested as an interceding variable between systemic discrimination and internalizing psychopathology/SI. Internalizing psychopathology and suicidal ideation were modeled as latent variables with validated measures of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder symptom severity and suicidal ideation as indicators, respectively. The estimated model fit well (CFI = .976, TLI = .958, RMSEA = .063). Results showed that perceived invalidation partially accounted for the relationship between systemic discrimination and internalizing psychopathology (β = .148, SE = .006, p < .001) and SI (β = .091, SE = .005, p = .01). The model was reestimated examining for group differences between heterosexual (n = 132) and non-heterosexual (n = 80) individuals; in the latter group, emotional invalidation fully accounted for the relationship between systemic discrimination and both internalizing distress (β = .153, SE = .007, p < .001) and suicidal ideation (β = .083, SE = .005, p < .001). The model accounting for group differences uniquely accounted for 9.0% of SI and 24.2% of internalizing distress variance in heterosexual individuals and 4.5% of SI and 26.5% of internalizing distress variance in non-heterosexual individuals. Overall, findings indicate an indirect relationship between systemic discrimination and mental health outcomes at least partially accounted for by perceived emotional invalidation, although these relationships may vary across sexual orientations. Future clinical and research efforts may benefit from integrating trauma-informed cognitive behavioral therapy frameworks that directly incorporate the role of adversities and emotional invalidation as experienced by marginalized populations.