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The Influence of Education on Attitudes toward Affirmative Action: The Role of the Policy's Strength
Author(s) -
FANIKO KLEA,
LORENZICIOLDI FABIO,
BUSCHINI FABRICE,
CHATARD ARMAND
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2011.00892.x
Subject(s) - affirmative action , meritocracy , prejudice (legal term) , social psychology , action (physics) , psychology , equal opportunity , political science , sociology , law , law and economics , physics , quantum mechanics
The present research examined the influence of education on attitudes toward affirmative action. Studies 1 and 2 showed no impact of education on attitudes toward “soft” policies of affirmative action. In contrast, they showed less support of the more educated to “hard” policies of affirmative action. Neither prejudice (Study 2), nor understanding of the affirmative‐action policies (Study 3) accounted for this effect. Study 4 demonstrated that the education effect is mediated by the threat posed by strong plans to meritocratic beliefs. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.