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Sexual minorities face stigmatizing experiences which can lead to disparities in physical and mental health, as well as social and economic resources. Additionally, research suggests that microaggressions, or small actions and comments that speak to a person’s prejudices, act as stigmatizing experiences and contribute to negative outcomes for the stigmatized. However, most studies of sexual minority health do not explore bisexual experiences uniquely, despite evidence that bisexuals have unique experiences of stigma and microaggressions. Those studies that do explore bisexual experiences find worse outcomes for bisexuals than their lesbian or gay counterparts. Thus, the current study developed a quantitative scale for assessing experiences of microaggressions specific to bisexuals. A 35-item scale formulated around previously identified microaggression types was validated using data from a sample of 232 bisexuals. Results indicated that bisexual microaggressions were distinct from homonegative microaggressions and that bisexual microaggressions were related to worse physical, psychological, and environmental quality of life. This scale is an additional tool that researchers may use in understanding how stigma experiences lead to negative outcomes, as well as to identify opportunities for alleviating disparities.

Past research has shown that emotion affects preferential choice outcomes. The goal of the present study was to further research on emotion and preferential choice by using mathematical modeling to investigate the effects of specific dimensions of emotion on the underlying mechanisms of preferential choice. Specifically, we aimed to determine whether the concurrent effects of positive-negative valence and situational certainty on attention and information accumulation threshold, respectively, would influence the magnitude of the similarity effect, a robust phenomenon in preferential choice. Participants first underwent either an Anger (negative and certain), Fear (negative and uncertain), or no (Control) emotion manipulation. All participants then completed an apartment choice task that was designed to elicit the similarity effect. A novel framing manipulation was used to test the effects of emotional valence on attention. Both feature framing and emotion condition significantly affected choice outcomes. These results suggest differences in deliberation style between Anger and Fear participants, as well as a surprising impact of alternatives outside the choice set on choice outcomes. Future directions are discussed.

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The intent of this thesis is to examine the psychometric properties of a complex span task (CST) developed to measure working memory capacity (WMC) using measurements obtained from a sample of 68 undergraduate students at the University of Central Florida. The Grocery List Task (GLT) promises several design improvements over traditional CSTs in a prior study about individual differences in WMC and distraction effects on driving performance, and it offers potential benefits for studying WMC as well as the serial-position effect. Currently, the working memory system is composed of domain-general memorial storage processes and information-processing, which involves the use of executive functions. Prior research has found WMC to be associated with attentional measures (i.e., executive attention) and the updating function, and unrelated to the shifting function. The present study replicates these relationships to other latent variables in measures obtained from the GLT as convergent and discriminant evidence of validity. In addition, GLT measures correlate strongly with established measures of WMC. Task reliability is assessed by estimates of internal consistency, pairwise comparisons with a cross-validation sample, and an analysis of demographic effects on task measurements.

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