AND JUSTICE FOR ALL - ETHNICITY, GENDER, AND PREFERENCES FOR DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROCEDURES

African American, Hispanic American, Asian American, and European Amer ican students rated their procedural preferences in response to a hypo thetical conflict scenario and then recalled a real dispute in which t hey had been involved. Subjects of all four ethnicities and of both ge nders preferred persuasion and negotiation to other options. There wer e significant ethnic and gender differences in preferences, as well as differences for the nature of the relationship and the nature of the issue, but these differences were small in comparison to the overall p attern of procedural preferences. Reports of actual procedure use also showed differences in procedure use across genders, ethnicities, and relationship type, but the differences were relatively small. Procedur al fairness was the strongest predictor of both procedural preference and affect toward actual procedure use.