AFFIRMATIVE ACTIONSmith-Lovin, Lynn 1987a ‘‘Impressions from Events.’’
Journal of Mathematical Sociology 13:35–70.
———1987b ‘‘The Affective Control of Events within
Settings.’’ Journal of Mathematical Sociology 13:71–101.
———1994 ‘‘The Sociology of Affect and Emotion.’’ In
K. Cook, G. Fine, and J. House, eds., Sociological
Perspectives on Social Psychology. New York: Allyn
and Bacon.
———, and D. R. Heise 1988 Analyzing Social Interaction:
Advances in Affect Control Theory. New York: Gordon
and Breach.
———, and William Douglass 1992 ‘‘An Affect-Control
Analysis of Two Religious Groups.’’ In V. Gecas and
D. Franks, eds., Social Perspectives on Emotion, vol. 1.
Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press.
Stryker, S., and A. Statham 1985 ‘‘Symbolic Interaction
and Role Theory.’’ In G. Lindzey and E. Aronson,
eds., Handbook of Social Psychology, vol.1, 3rd ed. New
York: Random House.
Thoits, P. A. 1989 ‘‘The Sociology of Emotions.’’ Annual
Review of Sociology 15:317–342.
Tsoudis, Olga, and Lynn Smith-Lovin 1998 ‘‘How Bad
Was It? The Effects of Victim and Perpetrator Emo-
tion on Responses to Criminal Court Vignettes.’’
Social Forces 77:695–722.
Wiggins, Beverly, and D. R. Heise 1987 ‘‘Expectations,
Intentions, and Behavior: Some tests of Affect Con-
trol Theory.’’ Journal of Mathematical Sociology
13:153–169.
DAVID R. HEISEAFFIRMATIVE ACTION
The term affirmative action has been used in the
United States since the late 1960s to refer to
policies that go beyond the simple prohibition of
discrimination on grounds of race, national ori-
gin, and sex in employment practices and educa-
tional programs. These policies require some fur-
ther action, ‘‘affirmative action,’’ to make jobs and
promotions and admissions to educational pro-
grams available to individuals from groups that
have historically suffered from discrimination in
gaining these opportunities or are, whether dis-
criminated against or not by formal policies and
informal practices, infrequently found in certain
occupations or educational institutions and programs.
Affirmative action policies may be policies of
governments or governmental units, affecting their
own procedures in employment or in granting
contracts; or they may be policies of governments,
affecting the employment procedures of compa-
nies or nonprofit agencies and organizations over
whom the governments have power or with whom
they deal; or they may be the policies of profit and
nonprofit employers, adopted voluntarily or un-
der varying degrees of public or private pressure.
Affirmative action policies may include the poli-
cies of philanthropic foundations, when they af-
fect the employment policies of their grantees, or
educational accrediting agencies, when they affect
the employment or admissions policies of the
institutions they accredit.The range of policies that can be called af-
firmative action is wide, but the term also has a
specific legal meaning. It was first used in a legal
context in the United States in an executive order
of President John F. Kennedy. Subsequent presi-
dential executive orders and other administrative
requirements have expanded its scope and mean-
ing, and since 1971 affirmative action so defined
has set employment practice standards for con-
tractors of the United States, that is, companies,
colleges, universities, hospitals, or other institu-
tions that have business with the U.S. government.
These standards are enforced by an office of the
Department of Labor, the Office of Federal Con-
tract Compliance Programs. Because of the wide
sweep of the executive order and its reach into the
employment practices of almost every large em-
ployer, affirmative action policies have become
extremely controversial.Affirmative action, under other names, is also
to be found in other countries to help groups,
whether majority or minority, that have not fared
as well as others in gaining employment in higher
status occupations or admissions to advanced edu-
cational programs.Affirmative action has been controversial be-
cause it appears to contradict a central objective of
traditional liberalism and the U.S. civil rights move-
ment, that is, the treatment of individuals on the
basis of their individual talents and not on the
basis of their color, race, national origin, or sex.
Affirmative action, as it has developed, requires
surveys by employers of the race, national origin,