People don't hate Affirmative Action because of their politics; they hate it because they didn't get into the college they wanted.
April 16, 2026
Original Paper
Bad News and Policy Views: Expectations, Disappointment, and Opposition to Affirmative Action
SSRN · 6566840
The Takeaway
We usually think of views on Affirmative Action as deeply held ideological beliefs. But this research found a much pettier driver: disappointment. When students don't get the admissions results they expected, they are significantly more likely to blame external policies for their 'bad news.' Their opposition to these policies spikes immediately after the rejection, regardless of their original views. This suggests that a lot of our 'political' opinions are actually just psychological defense mechanisms to protect our egos from personal failure. It’s easier to blame a policy than to accept you weren't the best candidate.
From the abstract
There is widespread opposition to affirmative action policies. We study whether personal disappointments shape preferences for such policies. Specifically, we test whether individuals' college admissions outcomes, relative to their expectations, influence their attitudes toward affirmative action policies. Using a retrospective survey among recent White and Asian college applicants, we find that disappointed individuals—those who were admitted to fewer schools than anticipated—are relativel