Microaggressions are subtle, everyday exchanges that convey discriminatory messages. In psychotherapy, client reports of microaggressions are negatively associated with important therapeutic processes and outcomes. However, many studies are retrospective and correlational, and cannot establish the causal impact of specific therapist statements. In this study, Asian and Asian American participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (N = 66) watched a brief animated counseling vignette, and were randomly assigned to four types of therapist responses to the client (control, subtle, moderate, and overt microaggressions). We assessed emotional reactions, perceptions of the session, and offensiveness of therapist statements. In general, moderate and overt microaggressions were rated much more negatively (Cohen’s d’s > 1.0) than subtle microaggressions or control statements (which were not significantly different from each other on any measure). We discuss implications for research, practice, and training.

微攻击是微妙的日常交流，传达着歧视性信息。在心理治疗中，客户的微侵害报告与重要的治疗过程和结果呈负相关。但是，许多研究是回顾性和相关性的，无法确定特定治疗师陈述的因果关系。在这项研究中，从Amazon Mechanical Turk（N = 66）招募的亚裔和亚裔美国人参与者观看了简短的动画辅导小插曲，并被随机分配给四种针对服务对象的治疗师反应（控制，微妙，中度和显性微侵略） 。我们评估了情绪反应，对会议的看法以及治疗师陈述的冒犯性。一般而言，中度和明显的微侵略性的得分要高得多（Cohen'sd > 1.0），而不是微妙的微侵略或对照声明（在任何衡量标准上，两者均无显着差异）。我们讨论对研究，实践和培训的意义。