LGBTQ+ Grassroots Activism: An Opportunity for Resilience.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other gender and sexual minority (LGBTQ+) individuals have a long history of mobilizing to raise awareness and initiate social and political change for LGBTQ+ related issues. The present study explored how grassroots activism impacted resilience among LGBTQ+ people. In-depth and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 LGBTQ+ activists from one statewide grassroots organization aiming to ban conversion therapy. Grounded theory analysis was used to identify a central theme and six interrelated subthemes. The central theme was that outness, activism, and resilience have cyclical relationships. Subthemes were related to identity exploration, affirmation, and synthesis; responsibility and humility; psychological skills; coping; social support; and negative experiences. These data may be helpful for LGBTQ+ grassroots activism and community leaders aiming to boost the resilience and strengthen well-being of their organization members.

Assessing rigid modes of thinking in self-declared abortion ideology: natural language processing insights from an online pilot qualitative study on abortion attitudes.

INTRODUCTION: Although much work has been done on US abortion ideology, less is known relative to the psychological processes that distinguish personal abortion beliefs or how those beliefs are communicated to others. As part of a forthcoming probability-based sampling designed study on US abortion climate, we piloted a study with a controlled sample to determine whether psychological indicators guiding abortion beliefs can be meaningfully extracted from qualitative interviews using natural language processing (NLP) substring matching. Of particular interest to this study is the presence of cognitive distortions-markers of rigid thinking-spoken during interviews and how cognitive distortion frequency may be tied to rigid, or firm, abortion beliefs. METHODS: We ran qualitative interview transcripts against two lexicons. The first lexicon, the cognitive distortion schemata (CDS), was applied to identify cognitive distortion n-grams (a series of words) embedded within the qualitative interviews. The second lexicon, the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC), was applied to extract other psychological indicators, including the degrees of (1) analytic thinking, (2) emotional reasoning, (3) authenticity, and (4) clout. RESULTS: People with polarized abortion views (i.e., strongly supportive of or opposed to abortion) had the highest observed usage of CDS n-grams, scored highest on authenticity, and lowest on analytic thinking. By contrast, people with moderate or uncertain abortion views (i.e., people holding more complex or nuanced views of abortion) spoke with the least CDS n-grams and scored slightly higher on analytic thinking. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest people communicate about abortion differently depending on their personal abortion ideology. Those with strong abortion views may be more likely to communicate with authoritative words and patterns of words indicative of cognitive distortions-or limited complexity in belief systems. Those with moderate views are more likely to speak in conflicting terms and patterns of words that are flexible and open to change-or high complexity in belief systems. These findings suggest it is possible to extract psychological indicators with NLP from qualitative interviews about abortion. Findings from this study will help refine our protocol ahead of full-study launch.

Attitudes of US adults toward using telemedicine to prescribe medication abortion during COVID-19: A mixed methods study.

OBJECTIVES: We explored public opinion about using telemedicine to provide medication abortion during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. We also investigated the associations between socio-demographic characteristics and support for using telemedicine in this context and explored factors that influenced respondents' attitudes on the topic. STUDY DESIGN: In a nationally representative, web-based survey of US adults (n = 711), we asked open- and closed-ended questions about using telemedicine to prescribe medication abortion during COVID-19. We used multinomial logistic regression to assess the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics, endorsement of abortion labels, and political affiliation and support for telemedicine in this circumstance. Then, we conducted content and thematic analyses with the open-ended data to explore what influenced respondents' opinions. RESULTS: Overall, 332 (44%) of respondents supported using telemedicine for medication abortion during the pandemic; 237 (35%) opposed and 138 (21%) were unsure. Respondents who identified as prochoice were more likely to support using telemedicine for abortion during the pandemic than those who identified as prolife were to oppose it in this context (RRR 2.95; 95% CI 1.31-6.64). Via our content and thematic analysis, we identified that concerns about safety, the legitimacy of telemedicine, and the belief that abortion should occur as early in the pregnancy as possible influenced respondents' beliefs about using telemedicine for medication abortion. CONCLUSIONS: More respondents supported using telemedicine for medication abortion during COVID-19 than opposed it. Among respondents who expressed support, most thought that medication abortion was safe and that telemedicine was equivalent to the in-person provision of care. IMPLICATIONS: There appears to be support among US adults for the provision of medication abortion via telemedicine during COVID-19. Policymakers may consider public sentiment as well as clinical evidence when considering legislation about abortion.

An Investigation of the Implicit Endorsement of the Sexual Double Standard Among U.S. Young Adults.

Despite empirical support for the sexual double standard (SDS, in which women are judged more harshly than men for engaging in sexual behavior), recent research has demonstrated inconsistencies, perhaps stemming from biased responding in the self-report measures that are commonly used. As a result, researchers are encouraged to adopt innovative methodological procedures to assess the SDS. Thus, the current study investigated the implicit endorsement of the SDS among 147 young adults (71 men, 76 women) using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and a limited-awareness gender priming procedure. According to our results, young adults endorsed an implicit preference for sexual stimuli (as compared to neutral stimuli) after receiving a male prime in comparison to a female prime, evidence of an implicit SDS. These results indicate that traditional gendered expectations still exist, in which women are judged more harshly than men for engaging in comparable sexual behavior. Implications and recommendations are outlined for clinicians and researchers working to promote gender equality related to one's sexuality.