Date of Award

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Schalles, Matthew

Area of Concentration

Biopsychology

Abstract

Hormonal contraceptives (HC) are one of the most widely prescribed medications in the world. Over 300 million people worldwide have used HC at some point during their lives; in the U.S. alone, 64.9% of reproductive-age females currently use some form of HC. Nascent research has implicated the synthetic hormones that make up HC in the possible alteration of many state-based psychological processes. Two psychological factors that may be impacted by HC use – perseverance and self-efficacy – are necessary components of success in every facet of life. This study investigates the possibility of differences in self-efficacy and perseverance between different types of HC users and naturally cycling (NC) individuals. Participants assigned female at birth (AFAB) were recruited to complete an online survey assessing self-efficacy using scores on a self-report questionnaire, and assessing perseverance using time spent solving an anagram puzzle task. I hypothesized that HC users would score lower on self-efficacy and perseverance measures than NC individuals, and that there would be variation in these scores between different types of HC users. This study did not find significant differences in perseverance or self-efficacy scores between HC and NC groups, between each HC group, or within the NC group. These findings could suggest that HC use does not impact state-based psychological factors such as perseverance and self-efficacy, but the null results could also be due to the limitations of the study. The results of these findings are pertinent to educated healthcare decision making for millions of HC users worldwide.

Rights

The author has granted New College of Florida the nonexclusive right to archive, make accessible, and distribute for educational purposes this work in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The copyright of this work remains with the author.

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