Are admissions decisions based on family ties fairer than those that consider race? Social dominance orientation and attitudes toward legacy vs. affirmative action policies

Abstract

This paper tests the competing hypotheses that social dominance orientation (SDO) reflects a specific desire to protect ingroup interests vs. a general desire to maintain status hierarchies by examining attitudes toward hierarchy-enhancing (i.e., legacy) and hierarchy-attenuating (i.e., affirmative action) selection policies. Study 1 found that social dominance orientation (SDO) was positively related to support for legacy policies and negatively related to support for affirmative action. In a more direct test of the ingroup interest vs. general dominance hypotheses, Study 2 found that among Asian participants, SDO is negatively related to policy support when a legacy policy is perceived to benefit the ingroup (i.e., fellow Asians); however, when the policy is perceived to benefit the dominant group (i.e., Whites), SDO is positively related to support. In all, these findings suggest that attitudes toward selection policies depend not on their specific content or effects on the ingroup, but rather on their impact on status hierarchies.