The Relation between Political Ideology and Attitudes toward Affirmative Action among African-Americans: The Moderating Effect of Racial Discrimination in the Workplace

Abstract

Survey data from two samples of African-American students supported the hypothesis that the association between political ideology and attitudes toward affirmative action (AA) is moderated by the experience of workplace discrimination. Specifically, ideology was associated with support for AA, but only among individuals who had not experienced discrimination. Among these individuals, egalitarians, who view fairness in terms of group equality, were more supportive of AA than were individualists, who view fairness from the perspective of the individual. Conversely, among individuals who had experienced discrimination, ideology was not related to attitude toward AA: support was high and approximately equal regardless of ideology. Findings were interpreted in terms of Referent Cognitions Theory (Folger, 1986).

Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action: Correlations With Demographic Variables and With Beliefs About Targets, Actions, and Economic Effects1

“…Fried, Levi, Browne, and Billings (1996) found a positive relation among minority respondents. Fried, Levi, Browne, and Billings (1996) found a positive relation among minority respondents.…”

“…In addition, two unpublished studies have addressed the relation between personal experiences with discrimination in the workplace and support for affirmative action. Fried, Levi, Browne, and Billings (1996) found a positive relation among minority respondents. Lea et al (1995) found a positive relation among Black respondents and a negative relation among White respondents.…”

An Exploratory Study of Undergraduates’ Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action Policies for Asian Americans in College

“…Therefore, based on ideas from the literature, as well as our knowledge of factors pertinent to college students, we developed the Perceived Intergroup Competition Scale (PICS) and the Support for Asian Affirmative Action College Policy Scale (SAAACPS) to measure these two constructs, respectively. We also modified Dinh, Weinstein, Nemon, and Rondeau's (2008) Attitudes Toward Asians Scale (ATAS) and Fried, Levi, Billings, and Browne's (2001) Principled Policy Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action Scale (PPAAS) to make them more applicable to a college context. Below are descriptions of each scale.…”

“…This scale was developed using the four items from Fried, Levi, Billings, and Browne (2001), with two items slightly modified to make them more relevant to the college environment. A sample item is "Affirmative action promotes equal opportunity in college admissions."…”

Understanding Affirmative Action

“…Other aspects of personality besides prejudice influence affirmative action attitudes. Personal experience with discrimination matters as well (Bell et al 1997, Fried et al 2001, Slaughter et al 2002. In addition, personality variables that are known to vary with prejudice, like social dominance orientation, have also been found to explain significant amounts of variation in attitudes toward affirmative action (Federico & Sidanius 2000a,b).…”