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Workplace discrimination, though often not as overt as in times past, remains prevalent across organizations. Aptly labeled modern discrimination, discriminatory treatment today is often characterized by subtle and covert behaviors that can skirt below laws and organizational policies. This chapter reviews literature on modern discrimination and its related constructs (e.g., interpersonal discrimination, aversive racism, everyday discrimination, selective incivility). It highlights similarities and differences between modern discrimination constructs that researchers should consider when selecting a discrimination construct for study. It also provides a model of targets’ meaning-making (e.g., appraisals, emotions, attributions, social identity comparisons) of modern discrimination, proposing mechanisms through which this lower-intensity mistreatment causes harm. Finally, it outlines gaps and opportunities for future research within the modern discrimination literature, including attention to other stigmatized identities, intersectional perspectives, convergence and divergence between constructs, and strategies for reducing modern discrimination.

Landers and Behrend (2015) question organizational researchers’ stubborn reliance on sample source to infer the validity of research findings, and they challenge the arbitrary distinctions researchers often make between sample sources. Unconditional favoritism toward particular sampling strategies (e.g., organizational samples) can restrict choices in methodology, which in turn may limit opportunities to answer certain research questions. Landers and Behrend (2015) contend that no sampling strategy is inherently superior (or inferior), and therefore, all types of samples warrant careful consideration before any validity-related conclusions can be made. Despite sound arguments, the focal article focuses its consideration on external validity and deemphasizes the potential influence of sample source on internal validity. Agreeing with the position that no samples are the “gold standard” in organizational research and practice, we focus on insufficient effort responding (IER; Huang, Curran, Keeney, Poposki, & DeShon, 2012) as a threat to internal validity across sample sources.

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Jones, Arena, Nittrouer, Alonso, and Lindsey (2017) make the case that discrimination is multifaceted and can be identified along several continua. They also emphasize the role that every individual may play in the propagation of discrimination. As such, they make note of several interventions from bystanders and allies to combat subtle discrimination. Although we agree that subtle discrimination causes harm and that interventions targeted at such discrimination are necessary, we propose some additional considerations for the science and practice of subtle discrimination reduction. Specifically, we discuss the limitations of focusing on subtle discrimination at the individual level, the ambiguous nature of intentionality, the view of subtle discrimination as a manifestation of a hostile environment that falls under the broader umbrella of negative interpersonal treatment, and the emphasis placed by Jones et al. on the potential for organizational level interventions by proposing several considerations for tackling a climate of negative interpersonal treatment.