Microaggression Theory

Influence and Implications

Gina C. Torino, David P. Rivera, Christina M. Capodilupo, Kevin L. Nadal, Derald Wing Sue, Gina C. Torino, David P. Rivera, Christina M. Capodilupo, Kevin L. Nadal, Derald Wing Sue

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781119420064
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Psicologia sociale

Get to know the sociopolitical context behind microaggressions

Microaggressions are brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership (e.g., race, gender, culture, religion, social class, sexual orientation, etc.). These daily, common manifestations of aggression leave many people feeling vulnerable, targeted, angry, and afraid. How has this become such a pervasive part of our social and political rhetoric, and what is the psychology behind it?

In Microaggression Theory, the original research team that created the microaggressions taxonomy, Gina Torino, David Rivera, Christina Capodilupo, Kevin Nadal, and Derald Wing Sue, address these issues head-on in a fascinating work that explores the newest findings of microaggressions in their sociopolitical context. It delves into how the often invisible nature of this phenomenon prevents perpetrators from realizing and confronting their own complicity in creating psychological dilemmas for marginalized groups, and discusses how prejudice, privilege, safe spaces, and cultural appropriation have become themes in our contentious social and political discourse.

• Details the psychological effects of microaggressions in separate chapters covering clinical impact, trauma, related stress syndromes, and the effect on perpetrators
• Examines how microaggressions affect education, employment, health care, and the media
• Explores how social policies and practices can minimize the occurrence and impact of microaggressions in a range of environments
• Investigates how microaggressions relate to larger social movements

If you come across the topic of microaggressions in your day-to-day life, you can keep the conversation going in a productive manner—with research to back it up!

Part I
Microaggression Theory

1
Everything You Wanted to Know About Microaggressions but Didn't Get a Chance to Ask

Gina C. Torino, David P. Rivera, Christina M. Capodilupo, Kevin L. Nadal, and Derald Wing Sue

Many controversies, myths, and misunderstandings have arisen over the definition of microaggressions and microaggression theory. In order to shed light on the questions and issues surrounding the concept and theory, we provide readers with answers and clarifications that contributing authors discuss in their chapters. It is not our intention to provide an exhaustive list of questions raised in research, theory, and in the manifestation of microaggressions, but rather to provide a thumbnail sketch of basic definitions. We have divided questions into four domains: (a) defining microaggressions, (b) myths about the concept, (c) their harmful impact, and (d) interventions that potentially lower the detrimental consequences.

Defining Microaggressions

1. What are microaggressions?
   Answer: Simply stated, “microaggressions are derogatory slights or insults directed at a target person or persons who are members of an oppressed group.” Microaggressions communicate bias and can be delivered implicitly or explicitly. An example of an implicitly delivered microaggression might be a White woman clutching her purse tightly when an African American man enters an elevator. An explicitly expressed microaggression can occur when a woman overhears a male colleague tell another male colleague that she is a “bitch” after she asserts herself in the workplace.
2. How do microaggressions manifest? What forms do microaggressions take?
   Answer: Three types of microaggressions have been identified in the literature and supported by empirical work: microassault, microinsult, and microinvalidation. The term microassault refers to a blatant verbal, nonverbal, or environmental attack intended to convey discriminatory and biased sentiments. This notion is related to overt racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and religious discrimination in which individuals deliberately convey derogatory messages to target groups. Using epithets like spic or faggot, hiring only men for managerial positions, and requesting not to sit next to a Muslim on an airplane are examples. Unless we are talking about White supremacists, most perpetrators with conscious biases will engage in overt discrimination only under three conditions: (a) when some degree of anonymity can be ensured, (b) when they are in the presence of others who share or tolerate their biased beliefs and actions, or (c) when they lose control of their feelings and actions. Because microassaults are most similar to old-fashioned racism, no guessing game is likely to occur as to their intent: to hurt or injure the recipient. Both the perpetrator and the recipient are clear about what has transpired. For this reason, microassaults are in many respects easier to deal with than those that are unintentional and outside the perpetrator's level of awareness (microinsults and microinvalidations).

   Microinsults are unintentional behaviors or verbal comments that convey rudeness or insensitivity or demean a person's racial heritage/identity, gender identity, religion, ability, or sexual orientation identity. Despite being outside the level of conscious awareness, these subtle snubs are characterized by an insulting hidden message. For example, when a person assumes the Black woman standing in an academic office is a secretary (and not a professor) the underlying message is that Black women belong in service roles and are not intellectually capable of holding an advanced degree. African Americans and Latinx individuals consistently report that intellectual inferiority and assumptions about being less qualified and capable are common communications they receive from Whites in their everyday experiences. Microinvalidations are verbal comments or behaviors that exclude, negate, or dismiss the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of the target group. Like microinsults, they are unintentional and usually outside the perpetrator's awareness. A common microinvalidation is when individuals claim that they do not see religion or color but instead see only the human being. Common statements such as “there is only one race: the human race” negate the lived experiences of religious and ethnic minorities in the United States.
3. Are microaggressions always unintentional and unconscious?
   Answer: They may be either. Microaggressions vary on a continuum from being intentional to unintentional. They are often reflections of a worldview of inclusion–exclusion, normality–abnormality, or superiority–inferiority. As such, they are often invisible to the perpetrator. Microaggressions may be expressed in the form of implicit bias where the individual is unaware of the biased communication, or via explicit bias where the person is well aware that they are engaging in discriminatory actions. The theory identifies three forms of microaggressions: microassaults, microinsults, and microinvalidations. Microassaults are most similar to “old-fashioned” racism where it is most often conscious and deliberately expressed. Calling a Person of Color a racial epithet, or preventing a son or daughter from dating or marrying outside of one's race are examples of conscious intentionality. Although microinsults and microinvalidations may be intentional, they are most likely unintentionally communicated by the majority of dominant group members. Mistaking a Black person for a service worker, for example, is a microaggression that mistakenly views African Americans as less competent or capable.
4. How are microaggressions different from the everyday incivilities that can occur to everyone regardless of sociocultural identity?
   Answer: While people of all racial groups may experience everyday incivilities (e.g., when strangers bump into you without apologizing; someone takes the parking space you were waiting for; having a supervisor who is condescending or unfriendly), microaggressions are more stressful because of the possibility that a person's race, gender, sexual orientation, or other identity group contributed to the interaction. When individuals of historically marginalized groups (e.g., People of Color, women, and LGBTQ people) are aware of historical or systemic discrimination or have experienced microaggressions in the past, they may be more conscious of how their identity groups impact interpersonal dynamics. When a person of historically privileged group (e.g., White people, men, heterosexual, and cisgender people) is the enactor of the incivility, even innocuous situations may be viewed as microaggressions.

   Conversely, some people (especially individuals of historically privileged groups) may not view incivilities as microaggressions and instead are able to externalize or interpret other potential causes or reasons for the interaction. For instance, when someone bumps into you or takes the parking space you were waiting for, it might be easy to quickly the label the person as “a jerk.” Further, because some people may not experience such incivilities often, the impact of such instances may not be as powerful as how microaggressions that are experienced more frequently or intensely by people of historically marginalized groups.
5. How are hate crimes and overt conscious expressions of bigotry related to microaggressions?
   Answer: Although they may share some similarities, hate crimes are not the same as microaggressions. Hate crimes are violence-based bias perpetrated against targets with the intent to cause harm (often physical) toward people from marginalized groups. They are criminal acts that are illegal and qualitatively and quantitatively different from microaggressions. Hate crimes are usually conducted by perpetrators identified as bigots, White supremacists, or racists. Violence, intimidation, and direct abuse such as physical assaults, lynchings, and destruction of property are examples. Although microaggressions may cause significant harm as well, and can be consciously delivered, they usually come from well-intentioned people who are most likely unaware of their bias. In fact, most people who commit microaggressions would publicly condemn hate crimes. Addressing hate crimes requires legal action, while an educational approach is more likely in microaggressions.
6. How are microaggressions against LGBTQ individuals different/same as racial microaggressions?
   Answer: Some racial microaggressions are similar to heterosexist and transphobic microaggressions; for instance, both LGBTQ people and People of Color can experience situations like being excluded in workplace situations, receiving poor customer service, feeling tokenized or exoticized, or hearing biased jokes or slurs. However, there are some microaggressions that may target people based on their identities differently; for example, same-sex couples may encounter glares of disgust when they show public displays of affection, which heterosexual couples may not experience. Meanwhile, Black Americans may be presumed to be a criminal (e.g., they are followed around in a store or by a police officer), whereas a White LGBTQ person may not have this experience. Further, there are certain environments and situations where microaggressions may be encountered differently. Because some LGBTQ people can often “pass” (e.g., other people presume they are heterosexual or cisgender), they may avoid certain microaggressions; meanwhile, many People of Color may always be conscious of racial microaggressions because their race is something that cannot be hidden. On the contrary, some People of Color may cope better with microaggressions because their parents or families may have socialized them to be aware of race and racism; conversely, LGBTQ people are often the only LGBTQ people in their families and may even experience microaggressions in their own homes. Thus, while microaggressions may manifest differently, they still have harmful impacts on people who experience them.
7. How do intersecting identities influence the experience of microaggressions?
   Answer: Intersectionality refers to an individual facing multiple forms of discrimination and oppression based on overlapping marginalized identities. Much of the work on intersecting identities has been pioneered by African American female scholars in the fields of political science, sociology, law, and more recently psychology. While much of the work on microaggressions to date has explored the manifestation of this phenomenon in relation to singular identity categories (i.e., racial microaggressions and gender microaggressions), emerging work supports the idea that there are distinct categories and themes of microaggressions related specifically to intersectionality. For example, gendered racial microaggressions refer to experiences that communicate discriminatory messages about being female and African American or Asian American (or another racial/ethnic group). These experiences are unique to the intersection of this particular gender and racial group membership and as such cannot be classified as a gender microaggression or a racial microaggression alone. Please see Chapter 4 for a thorough review of this literature.
8. Aren't some microaggressions really macroaggressions? If not, is there such a thing as a macroaggression?
   Answer: Microaggressions and macroaggressions are not the same concepts. There is much confusion concerning the use of the term macroaggression....