Racial Microaggression at Work: Implications for Caucasian and African-American Employees

The present study is designed to extend the finding of Miner-Rubino and Cortina (2007) on bystander experiences of sexual harassment to bystander experiences of racial microaggressions. Racial microaggressions are a form of subtle racism, which are short, quick, everyday encounters that send degrading messages to people of color. The affects of racial microaggression on psychological, physical, and occupational outcomes were examined for both Caucasian and African-American employees. The results of the study indicate that racial microaggression are negatively related to psychological well-being for both races, as well as correlated to multiple negative work outcomes such as job burnout, job withdrawal, and a decrease in job commitment. The overall results demonstrate that subtle racism is pervasive in the workplace and detrimental to employee well-being.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Psychology

Year

2009

Author dc:creator

• Lee, Deborah R.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Anthony Paquin (Director),Dr. Reagan Brown,Dr. Jacqueline Pope-Terrance

• sexual harassment
• racial microaggression
• workplace outcomes
• Social Identity Theory
• Cognitive Psychology
• Psychology
• Social Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/72

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.wku.edu:theses-1073