Affirmative Action as Help: A Review of Recipient Reactions to Preferential Selection and Affirmative Action

Abstract

We review research on four areas of recipient reactions to affirmative action: (a) self-evaluations of ability and performance, (b) motivation and task interest, (c) performance and achievement, and (d) evaluations of selection procedures. Not surprisingly, the process by which affirmative action was implemented strongly affected the findings. Self-evaluations of ability and specific components of performance were adversely affected when selection procedures did not provide unambiguous, explicit, and focused evidence of recipient qualifications. In contrast, measures of motivation were largely unaffected by any type of selection, although task choice was adversely affected when the selection process did not provide clear evidence of recipient qualifications. Task performance was complexly affected by selection process and other contextual variables. Finally, selection procedures that did not provide unambiguous, explicit, and focused evidence of qualifications were regarded by recipients as less fair than...