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Public Opinion Quarterly Advance Access originally published online on August 21, 2008
Public Opinion Quarterly 2008 72(3):514-522; doi:10.1093/poq/nfn031
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Affirmative Action Programs for Women and Minorities

Expressed Support Affected by Question Order

David C. Wilson, David W. Moore, Patrick F. Mckay and Derek R. Avery

Address correspondence to David C. Wilson; e-mail: dcwilson{at}udel.edu

This paper examines the effects of question ordering on support for affirmative action (AA) for women and racial minorities. Public opinion surveys show that the public expresses greater support for gender-targeted AA than for race-targeted AA, but no research has addressed the extent to which expressed support for one group influences expressed support toward the other. We examine this question by testing the effects of question order on reported support for race and gender targets. Using a split-ballot experimental design, national data show that presenting gender-targeted AA before race-targeted AA increases reported support for the racial target, and conversely, presenting race-targeted AA first decreases reported support for gender-targeted AA. The order effects imply that race still has a significant impact on these considerations. The study finds exceptions to this rule among blacks and liberals, whose support for AA programs is unaffected by the order in which the programs are considered.

DAVID C. WILSON is with the Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Delaware, 347 Smith Hall, Newark, DE 19716, USA. PATRICK F. MCKAY is with the School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Janice H. Levin Building Room 207, 94 Rockafeller Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. DAVID W. MOORE is with the University of New Hampshire, The Carsey Institute, 73 Main Street, Huddleston Hall, Durham, NH 03824, USA. DEREK R. AVERY is with the Department of Psychology and Department of Management, University of Houston, 126 Heyne Building, Houston, TX 77004, USA. The authors would like to thank Jeff Jones and the Gallup Organization for providing valuable information about the data, and also Lawrence Bobo, Nancy Mathiowetz, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.


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