Page 119 - Microaggressions in Everyday Live Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

Microaggressions and Daily Hassles 93

Table 5.1 Sample Stressors and Their Rankings by Undergraduate College Students
SITUATION SEVERITY FREQUENCY
Death of family member or friend 3.97 1.89
Had lots of tests 3.62 4.39
Finals week 3.62 3.64
Breaking up a relationship 3.45 2.21
Property stolen 3.41 1.96
Roommate confl icts 3.10 2.68
Lack of money 3.07 3.36
Arguments with friends 2.97 2.43
Trying to decide on a major 2.79 3.25
Attending a boring class 1.66 4.07
Source: Crandall, Preisler, & Aussprung (1992).
Note: Event severity was measured on a 4-point scale from “none” to “a lot” and frequency was measured on
a 5-point scale from “never” to “always.”

undesirable, can act as stressors. Further, the accumulation of small changes
could summate into a powerful and potent form of stress equal in force to
one extremely traumatic event (deJong, Timmerman, & Emmelkamp, 1996;
Holmes & Holmes, 1970; Rahe, 1994).
The researchers created an instrument, the Social Readjustment Rating Scale
(SRRS), which ranked events as to their potential stress value. The total life
change units (LCUs) could be calculated for individuals based upon the number
and ranking of the daily hassles they encountered over a given period of time.
For example, they found that 93% of health problems such as infections, aller-
gies, bone/muscle injuries, and psychosomatic illnesses occurred in patients
who in the previous year obtained LCU values of 150 or more (mild crisis or
stress). Higher accumulated LCUs were correlated with the number of people
who displayed illnesses, and greater severity of illnesses, as well. The fi ndings
from their studies led to one major conclusion that has since altered our con-
ception of stress severity: Although minor life changes and daily hassles were

not sufficient alone to constitute a serious stressor, the cumulative impact of
many events could be considered a crisis. As race - related, gender - related, and
sexual - orientation - related microaggressions have been shown to be a lifelong
and continuing experience of marginalized groups, a strong case can be made

that microaggressions are anything but insignificant: they are extremely harm-
ful and detrimental to people of color, women, and LGBTs.

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