Racial Prejudice and Stereotype Activation

Abstract

The main goal of the present study was to investigate the interrelationships among preudice and the endorsement and activation of cultural stereotypes. The endorsement of stereotypes was examined using an attribution estimate measure. Stereotype activation was examined using a pronunciation task with short and long stimulus onset asynchronies (300 ms and 2000 ms) to induce automatic and controlled processing. As expected, high prejudiced participants endorsed cultural stereotypes to a greater extent than low prejudiced participants. Furthermore, for high prejudiced participants, Black category labels facilitated stereo-type activation under automatic and controlled processing conditions. For low prejudiced participants, no evidence of differential activation was found for stereotypes relative to non-stereotypes as a function of category labels under either processing condition. In addition, stereotype activation was correlated with individual differences in stereotype endorsement.