DO SOLO ARRANGEMENTS LEAD TO ATTRIBUTIONS OF TOKENISM - PERCEPTIONS OF SELECTION CRITERIA AND TASK ASSIGNMENTS TO RACE AND GENDER SOLOS

In 2 studies, African American and Whits participants judged the likel ihood that solos in work groups were selected for membership in a work group on the basis of either affirmative action or ability. Following this, they were asked to imagine themselves as managers of the group and to assign tasks to each of the employees, Judgments of the overall work groups were also obtained. As expected, the extent to which obse rvers attributed the presence of the solo to affirmative action and as signed tasks was dependent on the gender and race of the solo and, imp ortantly, the gender and race of the majority of group members. These findings have practical utility in that they paint to the continuing i mportance of context effects in impression formation and task assignme nts.