[Academic Survey] Asexual Minority Stress Scale (AMSS): Part 3

[rouvere]

Asexual Minority Stress Scale (AMSS): Part 3

Participants who complete the survey IN FULL will be entered in a drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card!

 

Please consider participating in the final part of a research study to create the Asexual Minority Stress Scale, a novel measure that measures minority stress factors in the asexual community.

 

In Study 1, we interviewed members of the asexual community to listen to the lived experiences of asexual individuals and their experiences with discrimination. We created a survey based on the content of those interviews, and in Study 2, we gathered data to refine the scale. We need your responses for Study 3 to assess the validity of the finalized scale.

 

You do NOT have to identify as asexual to participate—people of all sexual orientations are welcome!

 

You can access the survey here: https://fullerton.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0HxZ7bQ5dgce08C

 

If you have any questions/comments, please contact the principal investigator for more information at rouvere@csu.fullerton.edu. Your participation would be greatly appreciated and will contribute to creating a stronger, more accurate understanding of asexual experiences! 

 

(This study has been approved by the University of California, Fullerton Institutional Review Board.)

 

[Ceebs]

12 minutes ago, rouvere said:

You do NOT have to identify as asexual to participate—people of all sexual orientations are welcome!

Curious about this part. I'm not asexual, but I saw that quoted bit so I clicked the survey link anyway. The questions about various experiences bothering you seem very geared towards asexuals, i.e., 'Being mocked in social settings for not finding people sexually attractive' and similar things. Which makes total sense and isn't a complaint lol, it's not like I have to take the survey. I just assumed you were looking for input from both aces and non-aces, precisely to help compare experiences between the two groups, but I'm not sure people who aren't asexual can even answer it? Again, not a complaint about your survey, not everything is meant for everyone, but that statement seems a tad misleading. Or am I misinterpreting something?

[kelico]

This study was approved by the Project Team.

On behalf of PT,

kelico

[ChipmunksBeCute]

On 8/29/2022 at 12:08 AM, Ceebs said:

On 8/28/2022 at 11:48 PM, rouvere said:

You do NOT have to identify as asexual to participate—people of all sexual orientations are welcome!

Curious about this part. I'm not asexual, but I saw that quoted bit so I clicked the survey link anyway. The questions about various experiences bothering you seem very geared towards asexuals, i.e., 'Being mocked in social settings for not finding people sexually attractive' and similar things. Which makes total sense and isn't a complaint lol, it's not like I have to take the survey. I just assumed you were looking for input from both aces and non-aces, precisely to help compare experiences between the two groups, but I'm not sure people who aren't asexual can even answer it? Again, not a complaint about your survey, not everything is meant for everyone, but that statement seems a tad misleading. Or am I misinterpreting something?

I had a similar impression for most of the questions (Some were perfectly open ended for all orientations but definitely the minority).  They seemed more selective to asexuals than not, though I suppose putting in a "Does not apply" option to answer them may have opened it up a little better to other orientations.

[sirenian]

@Ceebs  and @ChipmunksBeCute and anyone else who may be curious about the question they raise:

 

So, I think you have hit on part of the point: that the researcher expects SOME of these experiences might have happened to (and therefore might bother) people of a variety of sexual orientations, whereas other experiences will more likely have happened to (and therefore would be more likely to bother) only people who identify as somewhere under the asexual umbrella.  So the idea is to ask a wide variety of people of all orientations to answer the questions, so that at the end, the researcher can say, "see, these experiences are ones that tend to be unique concerns to the asexual community."

The idea is, if you're like, "this would never happen to me," then you would say that it hasn't bothered you at all, because you haven't had that experience!  

 

 

(My explanation here comes from two sources of insight: first, having participated in the earlier phases of this researcher's project, and second, having a background in doing human subjects research myself.  However, of course, I cannot speak for anyone else's research project!  I'm just sharing my impression.)

 

Anyhow, hope that is helpful to y'all and others.

[Mvonsaatz]

There’s a link in this survey to another one that they want you to complete. I have my code but missed the link and now can’t get back to it. Does anyone have it? 

[Kimi_gata]

Taken. I liked this!

[AABattery]

I'm going through the survey though I do take issue with some of the questions. Like "Asexual people are CEOs/government official positions in my state"??? How would I know and who actually cares? Living in a society where this is public information would be horrifying, actually.

 

"People have expressed disagreement to asexuality being under the LGBTQ umbrella/people have said aces aren't LGBTQ" - what is this trying to prove? Asexuals have expressed disagreement about this but I don't think that's a 'stress factor' by default, just depends on your opinion. 

 

For questions like these, an additional question of "On a scale of 1 to 10 how much does this bother you?" should have been added.

[sirenian]

@AABatteryum, it's not trying to prove anything?

The researcher started out over a year ago by interviewing a bunch of people who identified as asexual, and based on responses of THOSE people who were interviewed, this survey pulls out things that THOSE people said bother them. 

The researcher doesn't have an agenda here, beyond, "determine whether the things that people who were interviewed identified are also things that bother other people."

So, like, if there's some item in the survey that doesn't bother you, great! Say it doesn't bother you.  And, at the same time, know that there's someone who was part of the original interview cohort who does care about that thing.  You may be annoyed that there's someone out there who cares about it, I suppose?  But, like, we all have our own experiences and care about ace representation and visibility in different ways, and that's kinda the whole point.  

[AABattery]

@sirenian I get that. That's the point I'm making but maybe I didn't explain myself well.

 

The questions I'm pointing out don't actually leave room for me to say whether or not these things bother me. I understand that they bother some people, totally fair. I'm not annoyed that things bother other people. That would be silly.

 

I'm trying to say that if the point of the survey is to determine the difference experiences of different aces, there are some questions (i.e. the ones I pointed out) that don't allow for that nuance. When a survey asks a bunch of questions about things that typically bother aces, and then throws in 'How often do you see ace CEOs or aces in positions of power?' it leads the brain to assume that that question is also something that should bother me, as an ace, so I wasn't uncomfortable saying 'I rarely see ace CEOs etc.' because I felt like it was implying that this is a bad thing, which I personally don't think it is. 

 

5 hours ago, sirenian said:

So, like, if there's some item in the survey that doesn't bother you, great! Say it doesn't bother you. 

There was no option for me to do so with these particular questions.

 

5 hours ago, sirenian said:

And, at the same time, know that there's someone who was part of the original interview cohort who does care about that thing.  You may be annoyed that there's someone out there who cares about it, I suppose? 

Again, perfectly fine that it bothers some people. I never said that other people's opinions annoy me. I'm also not saying that these things shouldn't bother people or people are wrong for being bothered by it. I'm saying that the way the question is worded doesn't allow for differences of opinion.