Scientific advancement on how, under what conditions, and for whom racial discrimination causes psychological harm is limited by the status quo of relying on survey methods and siloed efforts of studying discrimination and microaggression experiences. Survey data linking retrospective reports of racial discrimination experiences, psychological outcomes, and other personal characteristics may be fraught with issues relating to individual differences in recall and response patterns, and what people consider discriminatory. To make causal conclusions, experimental methods are helpful in accounting for extraneous variables and allowing researchers to standardize stimuli that simulate racial discrimination experiences in the lab. Virtual reality (VR) can help simulating real-life experiences and enhance ecological validity of lab-based experimental results. Multimethod results came from participants of color who completed a lab-based experiment on racial discrimination, and responded to follow-up surveys on their experiences with the study. We will address whether racial discrimination experiences simulated in VR elicited psychological reactions in real-time, the degree to which individual differences in racial identity modified negative effects of racial discrimination, how racial discrimination across severity levels prompted individuals to respond in qualitatively distinctive manner, and if participants considered the use of VR and experimentation to be ethical.