Racial Stereotypes

Theoretically, the present work examined the role of personal endorsement of cultural stereotypes. Devine (1989)

proposed that because of the repeated and virtually unavoidable exposure to pervasive cultural stereotypes, both high

and low prejudiced individuals will automatically activate these representations when they are presented with

representations of those groups regardless of their personal level of endorsement of these stereotypes (i.e., personal

stereotypes). Recently, Lepore and Brown (1997) highlighted an important distinction between stereotype priming and

category priming. Stereotype priming involves cueing stereotypic characteristics (e.g., lazy) directly, with or without the

category label (e.g., Black). Categorization priming occurs when only the category (e.g., Black) is cued in isolation of any

stereotypic characteristics. Lepore and Brown noted that Devine’s (1989, Study 2) research involved both stereotypic

priming and category priming simultaneously, and they observed, "Many primes had clear negative connotations ... that

could have directly cued hostility" (p. 276). The absence of differences in the responses of high and low prejudiced

participants in the Devine study may thus have occurred because of the direct activation of semantic associations

involved in stereotype priming rather than because of a close association between the category alone and the stereotype.

Lepore and Brown (1997) further argued that "high-and low-prejudice people’s representations of the social group may not

differ in terms of content (at least for stereotype knowledge) but stronger links may have developed for different

characteristics" (p. 277). Lepore and Brown reasoned that, as a consequence of this differential strength of associative

links with the category, high and low prejudiced people would show divergent automatic stereotype activation as a

function of category priming. Consistent with their hypothesis, using Devine’s (1989, Study 2) priming and subsequent

impression formation procedure, Lepore and Brown found that when only the category was primed, high prejudiced

participants showed evidence of automatic negative stereotype activation, whereas low prejudiced participants did not

(and, in fact, tended to show activation of positive associates). When stereotype priming was involved, however, both high

and low prejudiced participants demonstrated comparable levels of stereotype activation.

The present research further investigated this theoretical issue by directly examining the relation between personal

endorsement of cultural stereotypes (shared beliefs about the characteristics possessed by members of a social group)

and the activation of these stereotypes within a category priming paradigm. Because participants were given the time and

opportunity to ascribe stereotypic traits deliberately to the particular categories, this process is considered to be

controlled.