PSY 451 Week 3 Prejudice, Discrimination and Privilege Example

"Can I Speak to the Real Technician?": Discrimination, Microaggressions and Privilege in One Client's Story

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

PSY/451: Multicultural Psychology

Week 3 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The client, practicum student and clinic are composites written for a model paper; research findings come from the sources listed.

Prejudice and discrimination are not only matters of open hostility. They also appear in brief, everyday remarks, in patterns built into institutions and in advantages some people never notice. This paper applies research on these processes to a client at the Phoenix community clinic and to the practicum student who observes his care.

The Client

Terrence is thirty-four, Black and has worked as a heating and cooling technician in Phoenix, Arizona, for twelve years. He owns his own small business. He came to the clinic for insomnia and what he called "anger that comes out of nowhere." In session, he described a pattern: homeowners who open the door and ask, "Is the real technician coming?"; a customer who praised him for being "so articulate"; store security following him through a supply warehouse; a police officer asking whether his work van was really his. Any one incident he could brush off. Together, he said, "they wear me down."

Key Concepts

Prejudice is an unfavorable prejudgment of people based on the group they belong to. Stereotypes are beliefs about the characteristics of a group. Discrimination is unequal treatment based on group membership. Racism includes individual prejudice and discrimination but also institutional and structural patterns, such as policies and practices that produce unequal outcomes regardless of any individual's intent.

Everyday Slights

Sue et al. (2007) described racial microaggressions as brief, commonplace verbal, behavioral or environmental indignities, intentional or not, that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative messages to people of color. They proposed three forms: microassaults, explicit derogations; microinsults, remarks that convey rudeness or demean a person's heritage; and microinvalidations, comments that dismiss a person's experiences. They noted that perpetrators often do not recognize what they are communicating, and recipients face a dilemma about whether and how to respond.

Terrence's experiences fit these categories. "Is the real technician coming?" and "so articulate" are microinsults, implying that a Black man is unlikely to be the skilled professional. Being followed by security conveys suspicion of criminality. When a friend told him he was "too sensitive," that was a microinvalidation, denying his experience.

None of the customers meant to insult Terrence; that is exactly why he cannot answer them and why the remarks stay with him at night.

Effects on Health

One meta-analysis pooled more than one hundred studies of perceived discrimination and health (Pascoe & Smart Richman, 2009). Perceived discrimination was associated with poorer mental health, including depression, anxiety and psychological distress, and with poorer physical health. It was also linked to heightened stress responses and to health behaviors such as substance use and fewer healthy habits. The authors proposed that discrimination acts as a stressor that affects health through both physiological stress and behavior.

Terrence's insomnia and irritability fit this pattern. He lies awake replaying encounters, wondering whether to respond differently next time, and he has started skipping his evening runs.

Discrimination Built Into Systems

Individual incidents sit within broader patterns. Bertrand and Mullainathan (2004) answered more than a thousand job ads in two large cities with some five thousand invented résumés, giving each one at random a name that sounded typically white or typically Black. Applicants with the white-sounding names were called back about half again as often, and a stronger résumé raised callbacks for white-named applicants far more than for Black-named ones. The study shows that discrimination can operate in hiring without any single employer stating a biased belief.

Terrence built his own business partly because early in his career he received few responses to applications. His story echoes the field experiment.

Implicit Bias

Many of the people who slighted Terrence would sincerely deny any prejudice. Research on implicit bias suggests that people can hold automatic associations, such as linking skilled trades or wealth with white faces, that differ from their stated beliefs and can shape quick judgments. Evidence on how strongly such measures predict individual behavior is mixed, but the concept helps explain how a homeowner who considers himself fair might still expect someone else to be the "real" technician.

Vigilance and Its Costs

Terrence described a habit of scanning each new customer for signs of suspicion and planning in advance how to dress and speak to avoid it. This vigilance is a sensible response to repeated experience, but it keeps the body's stress system active for hours and makes it harder to relax at night. His insomnia may reflect not only the incidents themselves but the constant watching for the next one.

Privilege

Privilege refers to unearned advantages that come with membership in favored groups. They are often invisible to those who hold them because they feel normal. Daniela, the practicum student, reflects on her own. As a light-skinned, U.S.-born Mexican American who speaks unaccented English, she is rarely asked where she is from and is seldom followed in stores. She also holds advantages of education and citizenship. She does not hold every advantage, and has faced assumptions about her intelligence as a Latina student, but she recognizes that she has never been asked whether she is "the real" professional. The reflection is not about guilt; it helps her listen to Terrence without minimizing his experience.

The Clinic's Response

The counselor validates Terrence's experience, naming discrimination as a real stressor rather than treating his anger as an overreaction. Treatment combines cognitive behavioral strategies for insomnia with discussion of how to respond to slights in ways that protect his dignity and his business. Connecting Terrence with a Black business owners' association offers support from others who share his experience. The clinic also reviews its own practices, such as whether security staff treat clients differently and whether front-desk staff greet every client the same way, since a clinic can deliver the same slights it hopes to help clients recover from.

Conclusion

Terrence's insomnia and anger grow from accumulated microinsults and microinvalidations, a pattern research links to poorer health. A field experiment on hiring shows that discrimination also operates through systems. Daniela's reflection on her own advantages helps her listen well, and the clinic's response validates his experience while treating its effects.

References

Bertrand, M., & Mullainathan, S. (2004). Are Emily and Greg more employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A field experiment on labor market discrimination. American Economic Review, 94(4), 991-1013. https://doi.org/10.1257/0002828042002561

Pascoe, E. A., & Smart Richman, L. (2009). Perceived discrimination and health: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 135(4), 531-554. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016059

Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A. M. B., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice. American Psychologist, 62(4), 271-286. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.62.4.271