Caucasians in favour of affirmative action can actually be biased against their own race when it comes to hiring decisions, according to research from Simon Fraser University and the University of B.C.
The study, published in the Journal of Organizational Behaviour’s July 2014 edition, gauged reactions of Caucasian subjects presented with situations in which less-qualified African-American candidates were hired over white or Asian candidates who shared equal qualifications.
Caucasians opposed to affirmative action judged the situation as less fair when the white candidate was rejected than when the Asian candidate was passed over.
But Caucasians who strongly supported affirmative action believed the situation was less fair when the Asian candidate was rejected instead of the white candidate.
Study co-author Brent McFerran, an associate professor at SFU’s Beedie School of Business, said the study showed people are very much driven by their own ideologies.
“If it’s just about merit, there should be no difference because the merit of the Caucasian and the merit of the Asian are exactly the same. So any differences have to be driven by something other than merit,” he said, adding all the samples came from the United States, where affirmative action is considered to be a more contentious issue than in Canada.
McFerran said one possible explanation behind the results could be some Caucasians who support affirmative action may simply believe that whites don’t need any more than they already have. By hiring more minorities, they see that as a chance to boost social equality.
Furthermore, he said definitions of fairness are likely different from person-to-person.
A Caucasian supporter of affirmative action may have judged the situation as unfair to the white individual who was passed over but fair to a society in need of more social equality.
“These ideologies really do colour our judgements…it’s not just conservatives or not just liberals that are subject to some of these biases, it’s both.”
