Racial and Gender Differences in Perceptions of Fairness: When Race is Involved in a Job Promotion

The present study examined 106 black and 69 white undergraduates' (82 males and 93 females) perceptions of fairness in an ambiguous situation where one stimulus person (a male employee) was seen as promoted over another and race was the only manipulated variable. The 2 (race of subject) × 2 (sex of subject) × 2 (race of promoted employee) × 2 (race of non-promoted employee) factorial analysis of variance indicated that, as expected, not only did race of the evaluator influence perceptions of fairness but it also interacted with race of the stimulus persons. As predicted, black subjects perceived more unfairness operating in the situations than white subjects, and they saw the promoted employee as less qualified than white subjects did. As expected, black subjects perceived the white employee's promotion over the black employee as the most unfair while white subjects saw no difference among the situations. An expected sex difference was found: females were more likely than males to perceive the company's decision as unfair. Black subjects were more favorable to the use of quotas than whites, and blacks believed there had been more discrimination and less progress in the last decade.