Heteronormativity teaches that the only normal way to engage in sexual and romantic relationships is to be heterosexual, often erasing other possibilities. Externally prescribed heteronormativity (the idea that one must be heterosexual, heteroromantic, and monogamous) may contribute to the distress that nonheterosexual individuals experience when questioning their sexual orientation. Uncertainty-identity theory states that questioning one's prior identities causes distress; to reduce this distress, questioning individuals gravitate toward new social identities with high entitativity (i.e., well-defined, homogeneous groups). However, this theory has not previously been tested in the context of sexual orientation development. Using an online survey in 514 nonheterosexual individuals, we assessed how heteronormative ideals, entitativity, and label authenticity related to distress when questioning one's sexual orientation. Strongly prescribed heteronormative ideals were a significant predictor of the distress felt while questioning one's sexual orientation. Neutrally presented information about other sexual orientation possibilities acted as a partial mediator: high levels of prescribed heteronormativity were associated with lower exposure to neutrally presented information, which in turn led to higher distress. The prescription of heteronormative ideals may contribute to a more distressing sexual orientation questioning process, and may prevent information about alternative, nonheterosexual identities from being accessed or heard. Sexual orientation group entitativity was not a significant predictor of self-uncertaintyrelated distress, suggesting that uncertainty-identity theory may not wholly apply to sexual orientation identity. However, label authenticity did predict lower distress, suggesting distress is a function of how well a label fits one's identity even if that label is ambiguous.
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