Date of Award

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department/Program

Psychology

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

John Paul Wilson

Committee Member

Akina Umemoto

Committee Member

Erica Nahin

Abstract

Minority Stress Theory posits that sexual minority status leads to unique stressors related to stigma, prejudice, and discrimination that create worse mental health outcomes for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) individuals (Meyer, 2003). The present study investigated working memory in LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ samples after a minority stress induction, as stress has been linked to cognitive difficulties in the context of memory retrieval in both short- and long-term memory (Klier & Burrata, 2020). The present study incorporated a recently validated film-based minority stress induction created by Seager van Dyk et al. (2023). 184 participants (66 LGBTQ+) viewed this induction and then completed an n-back task that assessed working memory. I found that both LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ groups performed similarly on the working memory task. However, LGBTQ+ participants reported more elevated negative affect after induction than non-LGBTQ+ participants. Although working memory impairments were not found in the present study, further research can examine how elevated negative affect in the face of minority stress events may impact LGBTQ+ individuals in other domains that can potentially be leading to adverse mental health outcomes.

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