| Discrimination against people who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual is common and such experiences are associated with an increased risk of substance use and risky sexual behavior. Delay discounting (DD) may represent a potentially important behavioral mechanism that underlies this relationship, given the empirical relationship between DD, substance abuse, and sexual risktaking. In the present study, a national sample of adults (N = 102) who identified as lesbian, bisexual, and gay were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Participants were assigned randomly to either reflect on (and type for 10 minutes about) either a time they were treated unfairly due to their sexual orientation (experimental group) or upon their common daily routine (control group). Participants then completed delay discounting tasks for hypothetical money and sexual outcomes. Participants also completed self-report measures, including exploring current affect, sexual behaviors, daily heterosexist experiences, and alcohol and drug use. An ANCOVA with SES and baseline negative affect covariates revealed no main effect of the discrimination manipulation on either delay discounting task. The absence of a main effect made the planned mediational analyses unnecessary. The impact of discrimination experiences on risk-taking behaviors may not be as straightforward as anticipated but there also are important concerns about our study sample that may have limited a legitimate test of our study hypotheses. The present study allows for additional understanding of potential limitations and provides a foundation for future research to investigate the underlying mechanisms involved in the relationship between discrimination experiences and risk-taking behaviors. |