Self, Family, and Friends: What Mastery Profiles Tell Us About LGBTQ+ Mental Health

Article information

Cleofas, J. V. (2026). Mastery profiles and mental health outcomes among sexual minority emerging adults: A person-centered, latent profile analysis. Sexuality & Culture, 30(1), 135–152. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-025-10415-3

What this study is about

This study asks a practical mental health question: What kinds of personal and social resources help Filipino sexual minority emerging adults experience better mental health?

The focus is on sexual minority emerging adults, or young adults aged 18–29 who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, asexual, pansexual, or another non-heterosexual identity. Emerging adulthood is already a demanding life stage. Young people are studying, working, exploring identity, forming relationships, and trying to become more independent. For sexual minority young adults, these transitions can be more difficult because they may also face stigma, discrimination, heterosexism, family rejection, or lack of affirming support. 

The study focuses on mastery. In simple terms, mastery means a person’s sense that they can handle life’s challenges and influence what happens in their life. But the paper does not treat mastery as only an individual trait. It uses a multidimensional view of mastery with three sources:

1. Mastery-self — feeling able to solve problems through one’s own agency.
2. Mastery-family — feeling able to face challenges with support from family.
3. Mastery-friends — feeling able to face challenges with help from friends. 

The main question is not simply “Does mastery improve mental health?” Instead, the study asks: What different patterns of mastery exist among sexual minority young adults, and how are these patterns linked to mental well-being and psychological distress?

Why this matters

Many mental health studies use a variable-by-variable approach. For example, they may ask whether family support predicts depression, or whether self-esteem predicts anxiety. These studies are useful, but they can miss the fact that people carry different combinations of resources.

Some young people may be strong in self-reliance but weak in family support. Others may rely heavily on friends and family but feel less personally confident. Some may have support from all directions. Others may have only moderate support across domains.

This is why the study uses a person-centered approach through latent profile analysis. Rather than assuming all sexual minority young adults are the same, the method identifies subgroups with distinct patterns of mastery. 

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What the researcher did

This was a cross-sectional online survey of 553 Filipino sexual minority emerging adults from the Greater Manila Area. The respondents were aged 18–29 and self-identified with sexual minority identities such as bisexual, gay/lesbian, queer, asexual, pansexual, and other non-heterosexual identities. 

The study measured:

• mastery from self, family, and friends using the Multicultural Mastery Scale;
• mental well-being using the Short Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale; and
• psychological distress using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale / K10. 

The researcher then used latent profile analysis to identify different mastery profiles. The best-fitting solution was a four-profile model, shown in the results table and visually summarized in Figure 1 on page 12. 

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What the study found

1) Four mastery profiles emerged

The study identified four groups.

Profile 1: High Overall Mastery

This group made up 22.4% of the sample. They had high mastery from self, family, and friends. In plain language, they felt personally capable and socially supported across important relationships. 

Profile 2: Moderate Overall Mastery

This was the largest group, making up 39.4% of the sample. They had moderate mastery across the three domains, with relatively strong self-mastery but not as high overall support as the first group. 

Profile 3: Other-Dependent Mastery

This group made up 22.4% of the sample. They had low self-mastery but moderate mastery from family and friends. In simple terms, they appeared to rely more on other people than on their own sense of personal control. 

Profile 4: Self-Dependent Mastery

This group made up 15.7% of the sample. They had high self-mastery, moderate friend mastery, but very low family mastery. In plain language, they felt personally capable, but family support was weak or unavailable. 

2) High Overall Mastery had the best mental health profile

The most important finding is that respondents in the High Overall Mastery group had the highest mental well-being and the lowest psychological distress. 

This suggests that the best mental health outcomes appear when personal agency and social support work together. Self-belief matters, but so do family and friends. For sexual minority young adults, mental health is strongest when mastery comes from multiple sources.

3) Moderate Overall Mastery was protective, but not optimal

The Moderate Overall Mastery group had better mental well-being than the Other-Dependent and Self-Dependent groups, but not as high as the High Overall Mastery group. 

This tells us that moderate resources can still help. Young people do not need perfect support to benefit. But the findings suggest that stronger and more balanced support across self, family, and friends may offer the greatest mental health advantage.

4) Other-Dependent and Self-Dependent groups had poorer outcomes

The Other-Dependent Mastery and Self-Dependent Mastery groups had the lowest mental well-being and among the highest psychological distress scores. 

These two groups are very different, but both show risk.

The Other-Dependent group had some support from family and friends, but low self-mastery. This may mean that when external support is unavailable or inconsistent, the person may feel less able to manage life independently.

The Self-Dependent group had high self-mastery but low family mastery. This may reflect sexual minority young adults who learned to rely on themselves because family support is limited, unsafe, or absent. Self-reliance can be protective, but the study suggests that it may not fully replace the mental health value of affirming relationships.

5) Balance matters

The study’s main contribution is that it moves beyond a simple “more mastery is better” message. It shows that configuration matters.

A person with high self-mastery but low family support may still experience distress. A person with social support but low self-mastery may also struggle. The best outcomes appeared among those with strong mastery across all three domains. 

This is especially important in the Philippine context. Family can be a source of care, housing, financial support, and belonging. But for sexual minority Filipinos, family can also become a site of silence, control, discrimination, or rejection. Friends and chosen families may therefore become crucial support systems.

Bottom line

This study shows that LGBTQ+ mental health support should be ecological, not only individual. It is not enough to tell sexual minority young adults to “be resilient” or “believe in themselves.” Personal agency matters, but so do family acceptance, peer support, chosen family, and affirming communities. 

The best mental health outcomes were found among young people who had mastery from the self, family, and friends. In simple terms: people do better when they feel capable and supported.

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Policy/practice recommendations

1. Build self-mastery without blaming the individual
   Mental health programs can teach coping, problem-solving, goal-setting, self-advocacy, and emotional regulation. But they should avoid implying that distress is caused by personal weakness.
2. Strengthen LGBTQ+-affirming family support
   Family-based interventions, psychoeducation, and counseling can help families become safer and more supportive for sexual minority young adults.
3. Support peer and chosen-family networks
   Friends and chosen families are often vital for LGBTQ+ young people. Schools and community organizations can create safe peer groups, mentoring systems, and LGBTQ+ student organizations.
4. Assess support configurations, not only symptoms
   Counselors and nurses can ask: Does this young person have self-confidence? Family support? Friend support? Which source is strong? Which source is missing?
5. Design sexuality-affirming mental health services
   Mental health care should recognize heterosexism, minority stress, concealment, rejection, and the importance of affirming relationships.
6. Avoid over-individualizing resilience
   The study warns against seeing mastery only as an internal trait. Interventions should also address social environments that make LGBTQ+ young people feel unsupported or unsafe.
7. Conduct more inclusive future research
   Future studies should include transgender, non-binary, and agender participants, as well as sexual minority young adults outside urban centers and outside school-based samples. 

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Glossary of key terms

• Sexual minority — A broad term for people whose sexual orientation is not heterosexual, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, asexual, pansexual, and other identities.
• Emerging adulthood — The life stage from roughly 18 to 29 years old, marked by identity exploration, instability, independence-building, and future planning.
• Mastery — A person’s sense of control over life outcomes and ability to manage challenges.
• Multidimensional mastery — Mastery understood as coming from several sources: self, family, and friends.
• Mastery-self — Personal agency, self-reliance, and belief in one’s ability to handle problems.
• Mastery-family — The sense that family support can help one face challenges.
• Mastery-friends — The sense that friends or peers can help one face challenges.
• High Overall Mastery — The profile with high mastery across self, family, and friends.
• Moderate Overall Mastery — The profile with moderate mastery across the three domains.
• Other-Dependent Mastery — The profile with low self-mastery but moderate family and friend mastery.
• Self-Dependent Mastery — The profile with high self-mastery but low family mastery and moderate friend mastery.
• Latent profile analysis / LPA — A statistical method that identifies hidden subgroups in a sample based on patterns across continuous variables.
• Person-centered approach — A research approach that looks for groups or profiles of people, rather than only relationships between variables.
• Variable-oriented approach — A research approach that focuses on relationships between variables across the whole sample.
• Bidimensional mental health — The idea that mental health includes both positive mental well-being and psychological distress.
• Mental well-being — Positive mental health, including optimism, clear thinking, coping, connection, and functioning.
• Psychological distress — Emotional suffering or symptoms such as nervousness, hopelessness, restlessness, fatigue, or depressive feelings.
• SWEMWBS — Short Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale, used to measure mental well-being.
• K10 — Kessler Psychological Distress Scale, used to measure psychological distress.
• Minority stress — Stress experienced by marginalized groups because of stigma, discrimination, concealment, rejection, and social exclusion.
• Chosen family — Supportive relationships that function like family, often especially important for LGBTQ+ people whose biological families are not affirming.
• Sexuality-affirming intervention — A mental health or social support intervention that validates sexual minority identities and responds to stigma and discrimination.