In recent years, understanding prejudice and discrimination toward minorities has developed to include the investigation of microaggressions. Microaggressions are brief and commonplace verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities. They are intentional or unintentional and communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative slights toward racial and sexual minorities. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to chronicle the prevalence and type of microaggressions experienced among a sample of 18 highly educated and racially diverse sexual minorities, 24-65 years of age. The impact of microaggressions on physical and psychological health is central to our investigation. Thematic data analysis was used to analyze 14 interviews and one focus group, which resulted in the following themes of microaggressions: (a) discomfort/disapproval with LGBT experience, (b) assumption of universal experience, (c) traditional gender role stereotyping, (d) denial of personal privacy, (e) exoticization, (f) ascription of intelligence, (g) policing bodies, and (h) assumption of criminality. Research findings may have implications for the development of interventions that can serve clinicians in their therapeutic work with microaggressed sexual minorities across racial diversity.
Seven ethnically and racially diverse researchers conducted phenomenological research using a semistructured interview investigating the presence and nature of microaggressions in the lives of 59 highly educated racial, gender, and sexual minority research participants, ranging in age from mid20s to mid60s. The minimum educational requirement for the study participation was a completed master's degree. Participants could be enrolled in a doctoral program and pursuing any discipline or could have previously obtained a doctoral degree. The relevance of resistance theory as a framework for understanding participants' experiences with and responses to microaggressions was investigated. Using thematic analysis within a social constructionist framework, 8 central themes were identified: (a) Suboptimal System; (b) Microaggressions Tax; (c) Acrid Environments; (d) Misconstruing Race, Gender, and Sexuality; (e) Assumption of Universal Experience; (f) Valuing Relationships; (g) Armored Resistance; and (h) Optimal Resistance. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.
This article offers an ethical decision-making model, informed by community psychology values, as a means for guiding psychologists when engaging in social justice-oriented work. The applicability of this model is demonstrated through a case analysis elucidating how America's psychologists individually and collectively arrived at the decision to endorse torture-ostensibly as a means for preventing terrorism. Critics have wondered how the American Psychological Association succumbed to these involvements, and how to prevent such ethical lapses in the future. Unfortunately, the American Psychological Association's ethical codes fail to provide explicit guidance for psychologists' involvement in social justice work that impacts communities and systems. To address this gap, we present a values-driven, ethical decision-making framework that may be used to guide psychologists' future practices. This framework infuses fundamental community psychology values (i.e., caring and compassion;health; self-determination and participation, human diversity, social justice; and critical reflexivity) into a 9-step model.
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