Mental Scarcity and Risky Behaviors in LGBTQ+ Populations

Abstract

Psychological research has illuminated the negative effects stigma can have on stigmatized individuals and members of stigmatized groups. Notably, members of the LGBTQ+ community face a myriad of negative consequences such as elevated levels of mental health problems and substance abuse related issues. Research by Mani, Mullainathan, Shafir, and Zhao in 2013 on mental scarcity revealed that when faced with scenarios involving severe financial issues, poor participants performed substantially worse on cognitive functioning tasks than their peers who were not poor or who were faced with much milder scenarios involving financial issues. In other words, these researchers discovered that poverty impedes cognitive functioning by using up mental resources and not leaving enough mental resources for other affairs. This thesis researched whether mental scarcity can have an impact on individuals who face stigma due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, and analyzed whether mental scarcity could be a reason for the elevated levels of substance abuse and risky behaviors in LGBTQ+ populations. Contrary to the hypothesis, transgender and non-binary participants performed better on cognitive functioning tasks than their cisgender peers and lesbian, gay, and bisexual participants also performend better than their heterosexual counterparts. The severity of the boss’s reaction to the stigmatized individual had no effect on risky behavior in all groups, which was also contrary to the hypothesis. Exploratory analysis was done comparing cisgender male and cisgender female participants, and no significant differences were reported between the two groups with severity of the boss’s reaction to the stigmatized individual also having no significant effect. These findings do not provide evidence that stigma experienced by LGBTQ+ individuals has a significant effect on their cognitive functioning and does not account for their elevated levels of substance abuse and risky behavior when compared to the entire population