Addressing and Redressing Discrimination: Affirmative Action in Social Psychological Perspective

Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action as a Function of Racial Identity Among African American College Students

“…The African American students in our sample endorse affirmative action and generally feel that the policy benefits them. This finding is consistent with data from prior studies of the beneficiaries of affirmative action (Crosby, Ferdman, & Wingate, 2001) and confirms in particular the findings of Truax et al (1998). Another important descriptive finding is the positive association between private regard and endorsement of affirmative action.…”

The Role of Threat in Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action and Its Beneficiaries1

“…It offers information regarding opposition to affirmative action from people who may be beneficiaries of affirmative action themselves. Crosby et al (2001) stated, ''The great majority of studies have been done in the last decade among White males and others whom the researchers do not envision as the direct beneficiaries of affirmative action'' (p. 503). In order to increase the external validity of the research on opposition to affirmative action, it seems important to examine why people in general oppose affirmative action, and sampling a broader range of university students is a first step in this process.…”

“…The second methodological difference between Study 1 and Study 2 is that a definition of affirmative action was given at the beginning of the questionnaire to ensure that participants understood the public policy. Research has found that attitudes toward affirmative action change depending on whether the wording of the definition of affirmative action is positive or negative (Kinder & Sanders, 1996; for a review, see Crosby et al, 2001). Because Study 2 examines opposition to affirmative action, the definition was worded negatively.…”

“…For example, a number of researchers have studied individual-difference factors related to opposition to affirmative action (e.g., Kluegel & Smith, 1983;Peterson, 1994;Sidanius, Pratto, & Bobo, 1996;Summers, 1995;Tuch & Hughes, 1996). Crosby, Ferdman, and Wingate (2001) reviewed much of the research on opposition to affirmative action and reported on many factors found to be related to opposition to affirmative action. Among these factors are self-interest, lack of fairness or meritocracy, racism and prejudice, conservatism, religion, and social dominance orientation.…”

Affirmative Action: Psychological Contributions to Policy

“…Of course, to educate people fully about the workings of affirmative action may require more than a simple presentation of facts and figures. A substantial literature shows that prejudice statistically predicts resistance to affirmative action (Crosby, Ferdman, & Wingate, 2001;Kravitz et al, 1997;Tierney, 1997). To be sure, many nonprejudiced citizens oppose affirmative action because the policy appears to them to fly in the face of distributive and procedural justice (Kuklinski et al, 1997), but it is equally clear that many men oppose affirmative action for women because of conscious or unconscious sexism (Tougas, Brown, Beaton, & Joly, 1995;Tougas, Crosby, Joly, & Pelchat, 1995) and that many Whites oppose affirmative action for people of color because of conscious or unconscious racism (Bobo & Kleugel, 1993).…”