Attitudes on Affirmative Action in University Students: Effects of Race, Political Beliefs and Prejudice

The interplay between explicit and implicit attitudes toward affirmative action (AA) policies is relevant to applied psychology. Its comprehension helps to improve our capacity to evaluate support for such policies. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which students' race, political opinion of affirmative action, and prejudice against minorities influence the relationship between implicit-explicit attitudes toward affirmative action policies. 492 student participants were recruited from a large Brazilian public university about racial quotas in admissions. Implicit and explicit measures of attitude about the admission process were applied, together with measures of political opinion of affirmative action, prejudice against minorities and race. The results show that race has little effect on the difference between implicit and explicit attitudes about the admission process, but that prejudice and political position exert strong effects. Our findings suggest that implicit measures of attitudes should be used when evaluating attitudes on AA.