Study finds evidence that affirmative action may undermine worker confidence

Affirmative-action policies based solely on gender or minority status can undermine a worker?s confidence in his or her own abilities, according to a recent study by industrial/organizational psychologist Madeline Heilman, PhD, and associates at New York University (NYU).

Part of Heilman?s study explored how 75 female NYU undergraduates?age 18 to 22?rated their performance when chosen for leadership positions based on a mix of merit and gender status. In the study, researchers paired each woman with a man who, unknown to the woman, was working for the researchers. They told the pair that they would choose one of them to be the leader of a one-way communication task where the leader instructed the follower how to draw complicated geometric shapes.

In reality, the researchers chose only the women to be leaders. But they told the women that they used one of five systems for choosing them as team leader:

? Merit, meaning the researchers chose the person who scored highest on a one-way communication skill test.

? Preferential equivalent, meaning that if both members of a pair had equal skill, the researchers would choose the woman to be leader.

? Preferential minimum standard, meaning the researchers would choose the woman as long as she met minimum skill requirements.

? Preference absolute, meaning researchers selected the leader based solely on gender.

? Preferential ambiguous, the women didn?t know what role gender played in the leader selection process.

After completing the communication test, the female participants evaluated their role as leader. All the women in the study felt they were highly involved in the one-way communication test, and that they reacted well to the task. However, leaders who believed they were selected based on merit or preferential equivalence reported less stress, rated their performance more favorably, and were more likely to want to remain team leader than leaders chosen because of gender, the study found.

These women also found the selection process fair while women chosen based solely on gender viewed the selection process as unfair. These findings imply that affirmative action is more effective when a candidate?s abilities play a major factor in the decision-making process. If job selection is based solely on minority status not only will outsiders have negative views of workers? performance but the workers will think badly about themselves. Heilman?s study was published in the February issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology (Vol. 83, No. 2, p. 190?205).

?M. Waters