Department of Psychology, Emory University.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2017 Jan;12(1):138-169. doi: 10.1177/1745691616659391.
The microaggression concept has recently galvanized public discussion and spread to numerous college campuses and businesses. I argue that the microaggression research program (MRP) rests on five core premises, namely, that microaggressions (1) are operationalized with sufficient clarity and consensus to afford rigorous scientific investigation; (2) are interpreted negatively by most or all minority group members; (3) reflect implicitly prejudicial and implicitly aggressive motives; (4) can be validly assessed using only respondents' subjective reports; and (5) exert an adverse impact on recipients' mental health. A review of the literature reveals negligible support for all five suppositions. More broadly, the MRP has been marked by an absence of connectivity to key domains of psychological science, including psychometrics, social cognition, cognitive-behavioral therapy, behavior genetics, and personality, health, and industrial-organizational psychology. Although the MRP has been fruitful in drawing the field's attention to subtle forms of prejudice, it is far too underdeveloped on the conceptual and methodological fronts to warrant real-world application. I conclude with 18 suggestions for advancing the scientific status of the MRP, recommend abandonment of the term "microaggression," and call for a moratorium on microaggression training programs and publicly distributed microaggression lists pending research to address the MRP's scientific limitations.
微侵犯概念最近引起了公众的讨论,并蔓延到许多大学校园和企业。我认为,微侵犯研究计划(MRP)基于五个核心前提,即微侵犯(1)通过足够的清晰度和共识来运作,以进行严格的科学调查;(2)被大多数或所有少数群体成员负面解读;(3)反映出隐含的偏见和隐含的攻击性动机;(4)只能通过受访者的主观报告进行有效评估;(5)对接收者的心理健康产生不利影响。对文献的回顾表明,这五个假设几乎没有得到支持。更广泛地说,MRP 的特点是缺乏与心理科学的关键领域的联系,包括心理测量学、社会认知、认知行为疗法、行为遗传学以及人格、健康和工业组织心理学。尽管 MRP 在引起人们对微妙形式的偏见的关注方面富有成效,但它在概念和方法方面还远远不够发达,无法在现实世界中应用。我最后提出了 18 条建议,以提高 MRP 的科学地位,建议放弃“微侵犯”一词,并呼吁暂停微侵犯培训计划和公开分发微侵犯清单,直到研究解决 MRP 的科学局限性。