Aldo M Barrita

Michigan State University | MSU · Department of Psychology

Sexual minority (SM) individuals have historically been perceived as having serious diseases and illnesses and, consequently, have experienced disease-related stigma and discrimination. These lived experiences of SM individuals involve being targets of negative and discriminatory attitudes and behaviors. Such experiences of stigma tend to intensify...

The construct of racial microaggressions has been well-contested in the psychological literature, and numerous methodological challenges have been presented in terms of operationalizing and measuring racial microaggressions. To that end, racial microaggressions, stress, and coping may be best measured by combining ambulatory assessment and qualitat...

Racially marginalized groups in the United States continuously report experiencing immigration-related attacks. Particularly, immigration status is often used to persecute people of color (POC). These two studies aimed to construct, develop, and validate a quantitative scale that measures the frequency of racial microaggressions within the context...

Objectives: Internalized social stigma and cyberbullying often lead to negative outcomes and decreased well-being among Latinx sexual and gender diverse (SGD) youth. Fear of being judged by family members deters Latinx SGD youth from using Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP). Parental acceptance can serve as a buffer against negative mental health outc...

Understood from a critical consciousness framework, White racial identity development involves recognizing and combating White privilege and supremacy. The present study investigated the development of White American young adults’ racial identity through their racial consciousness and racial affect and their combined impact on critical reflection u...

Sexual and gender diverse (SGD) and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) live at the intersection of statuses that create unique experiences of marginalization. Minority stress theory is often utilized to examine how distal and proximal minority stressors contribute to mental health disparities among SGD communities. However, existing min...

This systematic review explored how researchers operationalized bilingualism when investigating the relationship between bilingual code-switching experience and cognition. Through a PRISMA-guided systematic review of thirty-two studies with original data, published in English, focusing on adult non-clinical samples, with bilingualism as a key varia...

Objectives: Latinx and Asian people are experiencing an elevated rate of immigration status-related oppression—both systematically and individually—despite actual nationality, and this type of cultural stressor has seen a rampant increase recently in the United States. We aimed to assess the relation and effect of immigration status microaggression...

Objective: As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Latinx youth report high rates of negative mental health outcomes such as anxiety and depression. Similarly, research with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth have documented increased negative mental health outcomes such as depression and anxiety as a result of the COVID-19...

In the face of harmful disparities and inequities, it is crucial for researchers to critically reflect on methodologies and research practices that can dismantle systems of oppression, accommodate pluralistic realities, and facilitate opportunities for all communities to thrive. Historically, knowledge production for the sciences has followed a col...

Race can be defined as a social construct that categorizes certain groups or individuals on the basis of physical traits such as skin tone or color, hair color and texture, eye color or shape. The use of the term has a long history of categorizing and dividing people into different groups, often to establish dominance through oppression and subjuga...

As student bodies in higher education become more diverse, efforts to address diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have also increased. Sexual and racial minoritized students are often systematically pushed out of higher education and currently report concerning dropout rates. Thus, research using an intersectional lens on oppressive experiences...

Introduction People of Color (PoC) in the United States encounter everyday racial microaggressions, and these commonplace experiences can wear and exhaust PoC’s resources. Racial microaggressions have shown detrimental effects on physical and psychological well-being. Consequently, researchers have examined and tested different ways in which PoC co...

Introduction In 2020, public outcry against police brutality prompted many social media users to post black squares and use the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter (BLM). Many of the people who posted these squares were engaging in performative action in the sense that they failed to engage with BLM’s history and core principles. Drawing from a critical acti...

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth of color—in particular Latinx SGM youth—experience higher incidents of bullying compared to heterosexual and cisgender White youth. These disparities oftentimes explain increased negative mental health outcomes, such as depression. Parental acceptance may be a particularly important buffer to the effects of bu...

Racial oppression in the United States has changed many forms post-2016 elections, including anti-immigrant sentiments towards highly visible immigrant communities, such as Latinx and Asian people. The weaponization of immigration status against Latinx and Asian people in the U.S. has increased drastically post-2016 and equity researchers have resp...

Introduction: Racial microaggressions are daily slights and denigrations perpetrated toward people of color (PoC). These forms of everyday racism are significant stressors for PoC and can insult, invalidate, and assault racial identities. Past findings on discrimination indicate a strong link between engagement in maladaptive behaviors (e.g., subs...

Marginalized college students report experiencing both systemic and everyday discrimination in higher education. Scholars have highlighted the effects of microaggressions on well-being and attitudes toward school persistence. Most studies have used a unidimensional approach to unpack oppressive systems for individuals with multiple marginalized ide...

Introduction Latinx and sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth experience higher incidents of racism, cissexism, and heterosexism in the forms of overt discrimination and microaggressions. These experiences could in part explain increased negative mental health outcomes, such as depressive symptoms. Evidence points to the possibility that LGBTQ‐spe...

Racism against people of Asian descent increased by over 300% after the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in the United States, with one in five Asian Americans reporting direct experiences with overt discrimination. Large-scale efforts and resources initially, and quite understandably, prioritized investigating the physiological impact of the coronavirus...

Early exposure to maltreatment and trauma are associated with an increased risk for a wide range of negative health outcomes and unhealthy coping behaviors later in life. • Research investigating the links between cumulative childhood adversity and addictive behavioral patterns is less extensive outside the scope of substance use. • Additionally, t...

The United States (U.S.) has a long history of racism and xenophobia, especially around infectious outbreaks. Recently, the associations of COVID-19 to China and Chinese people have been reflected in a surge of anti-Asian sentiment and hate crimes. Therefore, the present study examines the perceived change in everyday racism among Asians in the U.S...

Inequities still exist in today's society, and this book advances awareness, an equitable mindset, and transformative change toward the goal of eliminating inequities and promoting inclusiveness and social justice. Racialized inequity is injustice or unfairness and exists when prejudice or discrimination based on any aspect of difference precludes...

The current study examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on perceived everyday discrimination and internalized racism among Asians compared to Latinxs. Recently, researchers have attempted to tackle institutional and interpersonal racism during this pandemic outbreak, however, few studies have addressed the internalized component of the racis...

In the early 1970’s, Emmy Werner, an American psychologist, first used the term resilience to define the positive adaptation in adverse conditions (Werner et al, 1971). Since then, different fields have used theoretical frameworks (Luthar et al., 2000; Wilson et al., 2016) to explore resilience that, which at times, may not capture the nuanced live...

LGBTQ People of Color (PoC) experience chronic oppression and their ability to survive these experiences is often attributed to their remarkable resilience. This chapter analyzes theoretical models focused on resilience for sexual/gender minority PoC. In particular, how LGBTQ PoC experience individual and community resilience is explored. Moreover,...

Microaggressions are typically brief and common behavioral/verbal indignities that communicate a sense of hostility, derogatory, or negative perception towards a targeted group. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed an increase in the number of microassaults, a more intentional type of microaggression, towards the Asian American population. We...

Video gaming and gambling have increasingly converged with one another (e.g., social casino games). For emerging adults (18–25 years old), who are already at an elevated risk for addictive disorders, this overlap in these activities may increase the likelihood of problematic involvement. At the moment, Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is being consid...

Video gaming and gambling have increasingly converged with one another (e.g., social casino games). For emerging adults (18–25 years old), who are already at an elevated risk for addictive disorders (Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration, 2019), this overlap in these activities may increase the likelihood of problematic involvemen...

Economic inequality in the U.S. has drastically increased over the last four decades. However, while much work has been devoted to examining the effect of this increase in inequality on health and well-being, little is understood regarding the impact of this increased economic inequality on social behavior. The present studies analyze the effects o...