| Adaptation
Strategy | Theoretical Framework | Double Consciousness | Ethnic Experience |
| Conform | Accept the goals defined by mainstream value system and the legitimate means of acquiring these goals. | Even if many minorities may not believe superiority of t he white person, they may often act if though they do . | Successfully functioning within mainstream White culture systems. |
| Innovate | Accept the formal goal of mainstream society, but significantly reject or alter the means of acquiring the goals. | Minorities see traditional means of his/her white counterpart is incompatible with their experiences. | The recognized differential experiences require some minorities to alternate the legitimate means of to achieve the desired societal goals. |
| Ritual | Scaling down or Rejecting high cultural goals but accepting/ retaining the moralistic prescriptions of society; lower their level of aspiration | Differential experiences or treatments are attribute to their race/ethnicity. Ritualist double-conscious is also referenced as “internalization of unequal stress” | These members self-alienate from the majority societal culture; They conform to the mandates of the larger society and socialize their children accordingly. |
| Retreat | Rejects both the goals of mainstream society and the legitimate means to attain them. | These minority members become aware of extreme levels of relative deprivation to their White societal members. | “I Had Enough!” Unfavorable housing, economic, and education conditions; the experiences force members to withdraw from previously defined aspirations. |
| Rebellion | Reject all mainstream value systems and means of achieving the goals, but also replace them with new ones (positive or negative replacement) | Some minority members separate from White mainstream societal values and replace them with ones consistent with their experiences. Also referenced as Aggression using some form of retaliation | Direct Aggression; grows out of acute despair (insurrection, race riots, strikes/boycotts)
Indirect Aggression; more typical method employed (fine arts and literature, ethnic humor, passive resistance, role change, etc.) |