Making Everyday Microaggressions: An Exploratory Experimental Vignette Study on the Presence and Power of Racial Microaggressions Matthew W. Hughey, Jordan Rees, Devon R. Goss, Michael L. Rosino and Emma Lesser, University of Connecticut The term “microaggression” has experienced a lively existence in the field of psy- chology since its introduction in 1970s. Sociology has recently come to study microag- gressions, yet serious gaps remain in the study of microaggressions. In particular, sociological analysis has not taken into account how exposure to microaggressive inter- actions may affect racial attitudes, how variations in microaggressive interactions have different effects, and what racial and gender positions render one more or less likely to engage in, or fail to oppose, microaggressions. Based on a GSS-based survey and an experimental vignette design, we address the following two questions: First, how might the presence of racial microaggressions affect racial attitudes? Second, what is the power of specific types of interactional microaggression? Results indicate that both exposure to microaggressions and the type of microaggressions are correlated with changes in speci- fic racial attitudes associated with the marginalization, problematization, and symbolic and physical repression of people of color. Introduction A tone-deaf inquiry into an Asian American’s ethnic origin. Cringe-inducing praise for how articulate a black student is. An unwanted conversation about a Latino’s ability to speak Eng- lish without an accent. This is not exactly the language of traditional racism, but in an ava- lanche of blogs, student discourse, campus theater, and academic articles, they all reflect the murky terrain of the social justice word du jour—microaggressions—used to describe the sub- tle ways that racial, ethnic, gender, and other stereotypes can play out painfully in an increas- ingly diverse culture. —Vega 2014— So wrote the New York Times in March 2014 in the wake of a spate of police violence against People of Color, legal attacks on voting rights and affir- mative action, and the creation of hundreds of programs to catalog the subtle yet systemic insults against people of color on college campuses—deemed “mi- croaggressions” (Balsam et al. 2011; Keller and Galgay 2010; Pierce 1970, 1974; Rowe 1990; Smith 2010; Sue 2007). The term has significant advocates and critics alike—from coverage in Time that proclaimed the concept is Sociological Inquiry, Vol. xx, No. x, 2017, 1–35 © 2017 Alpha Kappa Delta: The International Sociology Honor Society DOI: 10.1111/soin.12167