This thesis is designed to examine the effects of discrimination on its target. It aims to investigate the psychological, physical, perceptual and behavioral responses that individuals exhibit when faced with racist, sexist and heterosexist as well as other types of discriminatory acts. Through meta-analytic procedures, findings from existing studies investigating the impact of discrimination on the target were gathered and their average effect sizes calculated. A total of 50 empirical studies were identified, from which 84 effect sizes were derived. Using homogeneity analysis techniques, the studies' effect sizes were compared and analyzed. The results show significant heterogeneity in the overall mean effect size (0.38) of discrimination. Subsequent moderator variable investigations indicated that among discrimination acts, sexism had the highest mean effect size (0.64), while among the responses to discrimination, the perceptual factor showed the highest mean effect size (0.65). Additional moderator variables' investigations resulted in significant differences between Canadian and American settings in terms of discrimination acts and responses.

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The existence of sexism in American society is well known but seldom remedied in modern-day workplaces. One method of understanding this is to turn to third and fourth-wave feminism, which promote a meritocratic belief system, highlighting the importance of individual empowerment, personal agency, and success. Third and fourth-wave feminism have been criticized for lacking theory, as well as for inadvertently fortifying sexism by neglecting systemic and structural forces of discrimination. Coupled with the current emphasis on political correctness in American society, overt expressions of sexism (hostile sexism) have become subtler or even imperceptible (benevolent sexism). Therefore, the study explored how women internalize benevolent and hostile sexism in the workplace. The goal of the study was to investigate what women perceive is the cause of being denied a promotion at work: personal failings (internal locus of causality) or systemic external forces related to sexism (external locus of causality). The results revealed attributions of stability and controllability are important in determining causality for both hostile and benevolent sexism conditions, but not for the no sexism control condition. An advanced feminist identity is related to internalized hostile sexism when the scenario is perceived as unstable, whereas denial of sexism is related to internalized hostile sexism regardless of other factors. Both primary and advanced stages of feminist identity are related to internalized benevolent sexism when the scenario is perceived as unintentional. Meritocracy beliefs are directly related to internalized benevolent sexism. Meritocracy beliefs do not directly impact internalization of hostile sexism after taking into account feminist identity and other attributional factors. Therefore, a sense of empowerment may be most detrimental for modern day forms of sexism.

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The current study examines the effect of religious orientation, social dominance orientation, right wing authoritarianism, and group socialization on the degree to which covert prejudice beliefs are endorsed. This study is novel in that individual and intergroup factors are simultaneously considered. Unlike much of the existing research, the study measures all six types of religious orientation for a nuanced examination of the different approaches to religion and the effect this has on attitude formation and maintenance. The study also demonstrates higher levels of generalizability in that questionnaires were distributed to a diverse sample and also considered many forms of discrimination (racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism). Additionally, relevant prejudice measures that better represent covert, modern day prejudice are used in the current study. Social dominance orientation (SDO) was strongly and positively correlated with all four types of subtle prejudice. In hierarchical regression modeling, right wing authoritarianism was the strongest predictor variable for all prejudice outcome variables. SDO was the second strongest predictor for all variables except for benevolent sexism. Demographic and religious orientation predictors varied by prejudice outcome variable. Only immanence and intrinsic emerged as significant religious orientations predictors. Multiple regression models with only religious orientation predictors were also conducted to examine the relationship of each religious orientation to each prejudice when the other religious orientations were held constant. Different trends for different prejudice attitudes were found for intrinsic and immanence orientations. Quest orientation was negatively correlated with prejudice and extrinsic religious orientation was positively correlated with prejudice for all prejudice outcome variables. Increasing intolerance with more indiscriminately pro- or anti-religious responding was not elicited. Instead a pattern of increasing pro-religiosity was related to higher prejudice scores. Progressive congregational factors correlated with lower colorblind racial attitudes, benevolent sexism, classism, and homonegativity among congregants.