Moral intuitions and attitudes towards affirmative action in college admissions

Affirmative action has long been a contentious issue in the United States. Using data from a 2021 national YouGov sample of 1125 U.S. adults, we are the first to examine the effect of moral intuitions on people's support for affirmative action in college admissions. We find that those with strong individualizing moral intuitions—a heightened general concern with avoiding harm and mistreatment of people—are more likely to support affirmative action. We find that its effect is mediated in large part by beliefs in the extent of systemic racism, as those with strong individualizing moral intuitions are more likely to also believe that systemic racism is pervasive, and also partly by low levels of racial resentment. Conversely, those with strong binding moral intuitions—a heightened concern with the cohesion of social groups—are less likely to support affirmative action. This effect is also mediated by belief in the extent of systemic racism and racial resentment, as those with strong binding moral intuitions are more likely to believe both that the system is fair and have higher levels of racial resentment. Our study suggests that future work should consider the role of moral intuitions in shaping people's views of contentious social policies.

© This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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Work Title Moral intuitions and attitudes towards affirmative action in college admissions
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. John Iceland
  2. Eric Silver
  3. Kerby Goff
Keyword
  1. affirmative action
  2. moral intuitions
  3. public opinion
  4. systematic racism
  5. racial resentment
License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. Social Science Research
Publication Date February 2023
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2023.102848
Deposited August 19, 2024

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  • Created
  • Added Affirmative_action_complete_draft_12-23-2022.pdf
  • Added Creator John Iceland
  • Added Creator Eric Silver
  • Added Creator Kerby Goff
  • Published
  • Updated
  • Updated Keyword, Publication Date Show Changes
    Keyword
    • affirmative action, moral intuitions, public opinion, systematic racism, racial resentment
    Publication Date
    • 2023-01-01
    • 2023-02