Date of Award

8-2027

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

School

Psychology

Committee Chair

Dr. Douglas Glenn

Committee Chair School

Psychology

Committee Member 2

Dr. Kelsey Bonfils

Committee Member 2 School

Psychology

Committee Member 3

Dr. Freddie Pastrana Rivera

Committee Member 3 School

Psychology

Committee Member 4

Dr. Megan Rogers

Committee Member 5

Dr. Megan Renna

Abstract

Background: Negative experiences related to one’s minority identity serve as stressors contributing to mental health concerns for those identifying as a sexual and/or gender minority (SGM). SGM groups have greater severity of some mental health symptoms than non-SGM individuals, yet it is poorly understood whether these findings extend to schizophrenia-like experiences (SLEs). SLEs are associated with significant distress and may indicate risk for the development of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. Associations between exposure to minority stress and SLEs are underexplored. This study aimed to fill this gap by assessing whether exposure to SGM-related minority stress was related to SLEs using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). It was hypothesized that greater minority stress would be associated with higher levels of SLEs. Further, it was hypothesized that exposure to minority stress would be related to more concurrent and prospective paranoia, schizotypy, and alexithymia, but lower predisposition to hallucinations, in the EMA data, both between- and within-participants. Methods: Fifty-six SGM participants completed ten days of EMA surveys assessing daily exposure to SGM minority stressors and SLEs (including schizotypy, paranoia, predisposition to hallucinations, and alexithymia) and an assessment visit, which included self-report measures of minority stress and symptoms. Pearson’s correlations were run between minority stress and SLEs. Multi-level modeling was conducted to assess whether exposure to daily minority stressors predicted concurrent and prospective SLEs when examined both between-person and within-person. Results: Minority stress differentially predicted SLEs, with rejection anticipation, daily microaggressions, and victimization evidencing more associations with SLEs than other minority stressors. EMA results indicated that participants who experienced above-average minority stress also experienced above-average SLEs. Within participants, increased minority stress was related to increased SLEs within the same survey, but not the next survey. Discussion: Minority stress experiences are associated with worse SLEs in the short term, but may not be associated with continued worsening beyond the brief timeframe of the survey. These findings suggest that SGM adults may be resilient to the mental health effects of daily minority stressors. Additional work is needed to examine the reliability and validity of SLE measures to determine whether adaptive cultural mistrust may play a role in these findings.

ORCID ID

0000-0001-8580-5227

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