Stereotypes and Prejudice: Their Automatic and Controlled Components
Abstract
- 3 studies tested assumptions from a model based on the dissociation of
automatic and controlled processes involved in prejudice
- Study 1:
- supported assumptions that high and low prejudice people are equally
knowledgeable of the cultural stereotype
- Suggested that the stereotype is automatically activated in the
presence of a member of the stereotyped group & that low prejudice
responses require controlled inhibition of the automatically activated
stereotype
- Study 2:
- Examined effects of automatic stereotype activation on the evaluation
of ambiguous stereotype-relevant behaviours performed by a race-
unspecified person
- Suggested that when subject’s ability to consciously monitor stereotype
activation is prevented, both high and low prejudice subjects produce
stereotype congruent evaluations of ambiguous behaviours
- Study 3:
- Examined high and low prejudice subjects responses in a consciously
directed thought-listing task
- Supporting model, only low prejudice subjects inhibited the
automatically activated stereotype congruent thoughts and replaced
them with thought reflecting equality and negations of stereotype
Intro
- Many theorists have suggested that prejudice is an inevitable consequence of
normal categorisation (stereotyping) processes
- This ‘inevitability of prejudice’ perspective states that as long as stereotypes
exist, prejudice will follow
- Approach suggests that stereotypes are automatically applied to members of
the stereotyped group i.e. knowledge of a stereotype is equated with prejudice
- This approach has implications bc no one can escape learning about
prevailing attitudes / stereotypes towards ethnic groups
- Approach overlooks important distinction between knowledge of a cultural
stereotype & acceptance or endorsement of it i.e altho one may have
knowledge of a stereotype, his/her beliefs may or may not be congruent with it
- Argued that stereotypes and conceptually distinct cognitive structures
- Beliefs can differ from one’s knowledge about a group
- Because stereotypes & beliefs represent different subsets of info about ethnic
groups, they may have different implications for evaluation of and behaviour
toward members of the ethnic & racial groups
- Goal: Examine how stereotypes & personal beliefs are involved in responses
, toward stereotyped groups
- Paper challenges inevitability of prejudice model & offers a model of
responses to stereotyped groups that’s derived from work in info processing
that distinguishes between automatic (involuntary) and controlled (mostly
voluntary) processes
- Automatic processes:
- Involve the unintentional/spontaneous activation of some well-learned
set of associations/responses that may have been developed through
repeated activation in memory
- Do not require conscious effort & are initiated by the presence of
stimulus cues in environment
- Inescapability (occur despite deliberate attempts to ignore)
- Controlled processes:
- Intentional & require the active attention of the individual
- Limited by capacity, but more flexible (than automatic)
- Useful for decision making, problem solving & new behaviours
- Previous work on both processes suggests that they can operate
independently of each other (tested in studies of semantic priming on words)
- E.g. prime was either semantically related to the target (body-arm) or related
to the target through instruction (participants told that ‘body’ would be followed
by the name of a bird like sparrow)
- In latter condition, subjects had a conscious expectancy for bird name, but
body should have also automatically primed its semantic category of body
parts
- Found that with short intervals, prime facilitated decisions for semantically related
targets (automatic)
- With longer intervals, induced expectancies produced facilitation for expected
targets (bird) AND inhibition for unexpected targets (eg body) regardless of their
semantic relation
- Before inhibition of automatically activated responses can occur, there has to be
enough time & cog capacity for conscious expectancy to develop & inhibit the
automatic processes
Study 1: Stereotype Content & Prejudice Level
- Examined high and low prejudice subjects knowledge of the content of the
stereotype of blacks
- Used a free response task in which no clues were provided
- Both asked to list content of the stereotype of blacks regardless of their beliefs
Method
- 40 white students, isolated
- Remained anonymous
- After listing content, subjects completed 7 item Modern Racism Scale
Abstract
- 3 studies tested assumptions from a model based on the dissociation of
automatic and controlled processes involved in prejudice
- Study 1:
- supported assumptions that high and low prejudice people are equally
knowledgeable of the cultural stereotype
- Suggested that the stereotype is automatically activated in the
presence of a member of the stereotyped group & that low prejudice
responses require controlled inhibition of the automatically activated
stereotype
- Study 2:
- Examined effects of automatic stereotype activation on the evaluation
of ambiguous stereotype-relevant behaviours performed by a race-
unspecified person
- Suggested that when subject’s ability to consciously monitor stereotype
activation is prevented, both high and low prejudice subjects produce
stereotype congruent evaluations of ambiguous behaviours
- Study 3:
- Examined high and low prejudice subjects responses in a consciously
directed thought-listing task
- Supporting model, only low prejudice subjects inhibited the
automatically activated stereotype congruent thoughts and replaced
them with thought reflecting equality and negations of stereotype
Intro
- Many theorists have suggested that prejudice is an inevitable consequence of
normal categorisation (stereotyping) processes
- This ‘inevitability of prejudice’ perspective states that as long as stereotypes
exist, prejudice will follow
- Approach suggests that stereotypes are automatically applied to members of
the stereotyped group i.e. knowledge of a stereotype is equated with prejudice
- This approach has implications bc no one can escape learning about
prevailing attitudes / stereotypes towards ethnic groups
- Approach overlooks important distinction between knowledge of a cultural
stereotype & acceptance or endorsement of it i.e altho one may have
knowledge of a stereotype, his/her beliefs may or may not be congruent with it
- Argued that stereotypes and conceptually distinct cognitive structures
- Beliefs can differ from one’s knowledge about a group
- Because stereotypes & beliefs represent different subsets of info about ethnic
groups, they may have different implications for evaluation of and behaviour
toward members of the ethnic & racial groups
- Goal: Examine how stereotypes & personal beliefs are involved in responses
, toward stereotyped groups
- Paper challenges inevitability of prejudice model & offers a model of
responses to stereotyped groups that’s derived from work in info processing
that distinguishes between automatic (involuntary) and controlled (mostly
voluntary) processes
- Automatic processes:
- Involve the unintentional/spontaneous activation of some well-learned
set of associations/responses that may have been developed through
repeated activation in memory
- Do not require conscious effort & are initiated by the presence of
stimulus cues in environment
- Inescapability (occur despite deliberate attempts to ignore)
- Controlled processes:
- Intentional & require the active attention of the individual
- Limited by capacity, but more flexible (than automatic)
- Useful for decision making, problem solving & new behaviours
- Previous work on both processes suggests that they can operate
independently of each other (tested in studies of semantic priming on words)
- E.g. prime was either semantically related to the target (body-arm) or related
to the target through instruction (participants told that ‘body’ would be followed
by the name of a bird like sparrow)
- In latter condition, subjects had a conscious expectancy for bird name, but
body should have also automatically primed its semantic category of body
parts
- Found that with short intervals, prime facilitated decisions for semantically related
targets (automatic)
- With longer intervals, induced expectancies produced facilitation for expected
targets (bird) AND inhibition for unexpected targets (eg body) regardless of their
semantic relation
- Before inhibition of automatically activated responses can occur, there has to be
enough time & cog capacity for conscious expectancy to develop & inhibit the
automatic processes
Study 1: Stereotype Content & Prejudice Level
- Examined high and low prejudice subjects knowledge of the content of the
stereotype of blacks
- Used a free response task in which no clues were provided
- Both asked to list content of the stereotype of blacks regardless of their beliefs
Method
- 40 white students, isolated
- Remained anonymous
- After listing content, subjects completed 7 item Modern Racism Scale
