摘要 : Public Significance Statement The Adult Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire measures rejection sensitivity (RS), a personality type marked by highly anxious expectations about rejection, in the same way across sex and sexual orien... 展开 Public Significance Statement The Adult Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire measures rejection sensitivity (RS), a personality type marked by highly anxious expectations about rejection, in the same way across sex and sexual orientation but slightly differently across age groups. RS is higher among women, sexual minorities, and younger people than among men, heterosexuals, and older people. Intergroup differences in personality might be determined by systematic variation in social status and social experiences across groups. Because of its close association with social experiences, rejection sensitivity (RS)-a tendency toward anxious expectations of, and hypersensitivity to, interpersonal rejection-represents one such personality disposition that might differ across social groups, with implications for understanding mental health disparities. After first evaluating measurement invariance of the Adult Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (A-RSQ), the present research sought to assess whether latent mean differences in RS emerged across sex, sexual orientation, and age in a population-based sample of Swedish young adults (age 18-36; N = 1,679). Analyses revealed that the scale achieved full configural, metric, and scalar invariance across sex and sexual orientation and partial scalar invariance across age. As expected, tests of latent mean differences indicated that women, sexual minorities, and people 18-29 years old exhibited significantly higher RS levels than men, heterosexuals, and people 30-36 years old, respectively. Findings from the present research highlight the utility of attending to group differences in maladaptive personality dispositions and information processing styles and their potential role in contributing to persistent mental health hardships uniquely affecting women, sexual minorities, and younger people. Implications for scale administration and future research into the social causes and consequences of RS are discussed. 收起