David Evans writes on affirmative action bias

David Evans, visiting assistant professor of psychology, has written a paper, "A comparison of the other-directed stigmatization produced by legal and illegal forms of affirmative action" is to be published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Recent studies have begun to show that the stigma of incompetence sometimes directed toward the beneficiaries of affirmative action may be significantly reduced as the preferences granted to women and minorities become more moderate. The current study examined whether the stigmatization of African-Americans would differ under hiring policies that represented legal and illegal levels of racial preference, according to federal regulations. Evans also is a co-author on the forthcoming paper, "In the privacy of their own homes: Using the internet to assess racial bias" in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Recent studies suggest that research participants show less distortion of their taboo attitudes and behaviors when they take part in internet-based procedures from outside the laboratory. The study explored whether such procedures would reduce distortion in the assessment of racial bias.