But Do They Care About Fairness? The Dynamics of Preferential Treatment and Minority Interest

Abstract

Why is it that increasing the number of women in an occupation through equal opportunity mechanisms causes potential beneficiaries of affirmative action to become less interested in the occupation? To account for that finding, it was hypothesized that not only the outcome of a selection process but the perceived fairness of the selection procedure affects the inferences beneficiaries make about an organization. Inferences of dispositions toward fairness in particular were expected to have a major influence on attraction to an organization. In response to a description of a situation in which they benefited from affirmative action selection, and in which selectee qualifications, the organization's history of discrimination, and the type of affirmative action procedure were manipulated, participants made inferences about an organization. The manipulations of qualifications and affirmative action procedure influenced perceived fairness of the procedure, dispositional inferences, and attraction to the organization. Moreover, dispositional inferences influenced attraction to the organization most. These findings underscore the need to study outcome-based and procedure-based social inferences for theoretical and practical concerns. These results also indicate that organizations should evaluate carefully the (actual and perceived) procedural aspects of their affirmative action policy.