Contributors to Parenting and Intimate Relationship Aspirations in view of October 7 Events and the Ensuing War - A Comparison between Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual (LGB) and Heterosexual Individuals

Parenthood and intimate relationships are central milestones in Israel's pronatalist society. Yet for LGB individuals, these aspirations are shaped by unique stressors that differ qualitatively from those of their heterosexual counterparts. Previous studies have examined aspirations for intimate relationships and parenthood in routine periods , but have rarely done so during periods of crisis. The terror events of October 7 and the ensuing Swords of Iron War have had a devastating impact on Israeli society. The current series of studies aims to bridge the gap in the literature by integrating data from two intertwined studies, one conducted before and another during the aforementioned events. Utilizing Terror Management Theory (TMT), Minority Stress Theory, and Hostile-World Scenario Theory, the research examines the associations between mental health and personal resources, on one hand, and parenting and intimate relationship aspirations, on the other. Study 1 compares parenting aspirations and mental health aspects (depressive symptoms and life satisfaction) before and during the war across both research groups; Study 2 focuses exclusively on the wartime period, incorporating variables such as exposure to atrocities, subjective trauma outlook, and internalized homophobia as contributors to parenting and intimate relationship aspirations. The research involved 900 men and women, aged 18-50, childfree individuals, across two phases: Phase 1 (pre-war, n= 569) and Phase 2 (wartime, n= 331). While Study 1 utilized the full comparative sample (900), Study 2 focused specifically on the 331 participants from the wartime phase. The sample recruited before the war includes both LGB (N=131) and Heterosexual (N=438) individuals, of them 191 men and 378 women, whose mean age is 25.55 (SD=6.59). The sample recruited during the war includes both LGB (N=115) and Heterosexual (N=216) individuals, of them 142 men and 189 women, whose mean age is 29.02 (SD=7.51). All participants completed online self-report questionnaires. Results indicated that: (1) parenting aspirations and life satisfaction were significantly lower during the war than before it, with a corresponding rise in depressive symptoms; (2) LGB individuals reported significantly lower aspirations for both parenting and intimate relationships than heterosexuals; (3) moderated mediation models (Study 1) revealed a differential crisis response, where the negative indirect effect of the war on aspirations via an increase in depressive symptoms and a decrease in life satisfaction was significant only for heterosexual participants; (4) Study 2 further validated this by finding that while external secondary trauma and higher hostile-world scenario were associated with lower aspirations for heterosexuals, LGB aspirations were primarily driven by chronic, identity-specific stressors, such as internalized homophobia, which functioned through both general cognitive and specific interpersonal pathways; and (5) across both groups, the strongest predictor of aspirations was the perceived likelihood of intimate relationship and parenthood, highlighting a tight link between desire and perceived feasibility.

The findings suggest a "stress saturation" effect for LGB individuals: It seems that their psychological mechanisms are already chronically activated by identity-based threats, rendering the acute national crisis a non-significant additional pathway for general mental health decline. Conversely, the majority group reacts more acutely to the collective trauma. These results extend TMT by identifying proximal defense boundary conditions in prolonged crises and emphasize the need for tailored clinical interventions, focusing on acute trauma for the majority group, and on chronic, identity-based vulnerabilities for sexual minorities.