Biseksüel kadınların erkek ve kadın+ romantik partnerleriyle olan ilişkilerinde romantik partnerin zihinsel temsilinin duygu regülasyonu üzerine etkisi: Partner cinsiyet kimliğinin rolü

An emerging literature on bisexual individuals shows that bi-specific stressors lead adverse psychological and physical health outcomes on bisexual individuals. Romantic relationship involvement is seen as bi-specific stressor provoking life event in bisexual people. Yet, adult attachment studies with heterosexual samples yield that imagery or physical contact with romantic partner as an attachment figure enhances one's affect regulation in the face of external or internal stressors. The current study, for the first time, provides an investigation of whether priming the mental representation of romantic partner facilitates the recovery from negative affect after exposure to a negative autobiographical memory and whether partner gender identity has an effect on the provision of affect recovery in the sample of bisexual women. Ninety-six bisexual women are studied under two groups: bisexual women in a relationship with men partners and bisexual women in a relationship with women+ partners. Results indicated that priming romantic partner following an upsetting autobiographical memory recall significantly eliminated the increased negative affect compared to priming acquaintance in both groups. Bisexual women with women+ partners had significantly better negative affect recovery than bisexual women with men partners. Lastly, effect of partner gender identity became non-significant after controlling for Identity Uncertainty. Findings showed that romantic partner can provide affect regulation and may act as a protective factor in order to enhance psychological well-being in bisexual women regardless of the increased bi-specific stressors with relationship involvement. The implications of the findings on affect regulation, partner gender identity, and mental health of bisexual women are discussed.