Cultural Humility and Racial Microaggressions in Cross-Racial Clinical Supervision: A Moderated Mediation Model

• Published in: Journal of counseling psychology 2024-07, Vol.71 (4), p.304-314
• Main Authors: Wilcox, Melanie M., Farra, Aisha, Winkeljohn Black, Stephanie, Pollard, Elinita, Drinane, Joanna M., Tao, Karen W., DeBlaere, Cirleen, Hook, Joshua N., Davis, Don E., Watkins, C. Edward, Owen, Jesse
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; African Americans; Aggression - psychology; Cisgender; Clinicians; Cultural Competency; Female; Health care management; Heterosexuality; Human; Humans; Humility; Interracial Interactions; Job Satisfaction; Male; Microaggressions; Moderation; Pacific Islander people; Professional Supervision; Racial Microaggression; Racism - psychology; Relationship Satisfaction; Supervision; Supervisor-Subordinate interactions; Supervisors; Therapeutic alliances; Therapist Trainees; Trainees; Women
• ISSN: 0022-0167; 1939-2168
• DOI: 10.1037/cou0000732

Cultural humility is important in supervision; however, studies have primarily sampled White supervisees. Racially and ethnically minoritized trainees experience microaggressions during their training, yet cross-racial supervision is less often studied. We examined a moderated mediation model to test whether the supervisory working alliance mediated the relationship between frequency of racial microaggressions and satisfaction with supervision, and whether the impact of racial microaggressions on the supervisee and supervisor cultural humility moderated the relationship between racial microaggression frequency and the supervisory working alliance. In a sample of supervisees of color (N = 102; majority cisgender women, 86.2%, and heterosexual, 59.8%; 35.3% Black/African American, 28.4% Asian/Pacific Islander, 18.6% Hispanic/Latine) receiving clinical supervision from White supervisors, we found that racial microaggression frequency was negatively associated with satisfaction with supervision, and this relationship was fully accounted for by the supervisory working alliance. Racial microaggressions in supervision were found to be detrimental to the supervisory working alliance, which was then related to lower satisfaction with supervision. Further, racial microaggression impact and cultural humility moderated the relationship between racial microaggression frequency and the supervisory working alliance; this relationship was strongest when racial microaggression impact was high and cultural humility was average or high. The social bond hypothesis suggests we are more likely to allow ourselves to be vulnerable when we assess cultural humility to be high. We posit that the observed moderation effect may be due to supervisees experiencing greater shock when experiencing racial microaggressions from supervisors whom they perceived to be culturally humble. Public Significance Statement The current findings demonstrate that racial microaggressions in cross-racial clinical supervision are negatively related to supervisees' satisfaction with supervision through their detrimental impact on the supervisory working alliance; and they appear to be most impactful when supervisor cultural humility is high. Still, even when microaggressions occurred, the supervisory working alliance was still stronger when supervisory cultural humility was higher. These results emphasize the importance of cultural humility as well as repairing microaggression-related ruptures in cross-raci