Attempts to suppress social stereotypes often lead to an increase in the accessibility of those stereotypes, thereby increasing stereotypic influences on subsequent social judgments. The present research sought to determine whether such suppression effects occur in relatively naturalistic situations. Participants in Experiment 1 wrote a story about a typical day in the life of an African-American target person after receiving one of two sets of instructions. Participants in the control condition were simply told to write whatever they wanted. Participants in the spontaneous suppression condition were informed that the study was being conducted by an African-American political group. The results indicated that participants in the spontaneous suppression condition wrote less Stereotypie stories than did those in the control condition. Participants in Experiment 2 first rated their attitudes toward African Americans under one of three conditions: a directed suppression condition, a spontaneous suppression condition, and a no suppression-control condition. In a subsequent task, participants formed an impression of a target person who behaved in an ambiguously hostile manner. The results indicated that participants in both the directed suppression and the spontaneous suppression conditions judged the target person to be significantly more hostile (i.e., stereotypic of African Americans) than did participants in the control condition. These results indicate that there are situational factors which motivate spontaneous stereotype-suppression attempts, leading to later increases in stereotype use.

Two experiments investigated the conditions under which previously suppressed stereotypes are applied in impression formation. In Experiment 1, the extent to which a previously suppressed racial stereotype influenced subsequent impressions depended on the race of the target who was subsequently encountered. Whereas impressions of race-unspecified targets were assimilated to the stereotype following its suppression, no such effects were observed when the target belonged to the racial group whose stereotype had been initially suppressed. These results demonstrate that when perceivers are motivated to avoid stereo-typing individuals, the influence of a stereotype that has been previously activated through suppression is minimized. Experiment 2 demonstrated that these processing goals effectively reduce the impact of suppression-activated stereotypes only when perceivers have sufficient capacity to enact the goals. These results suggest that both sufficient motivation and capacity are necessary to prevent heightened stereotyping following stereotype suppression.

The impact of behavioral stereotypicality on category accessibility was examined using a novel method, the Indirect Category Accessibility Task (ICAT). In the ICAT, participants learn to distinguish visual stimuli from two categories based on feedback. In two studies, participants were exposed to images of individuals behaving consistently, inconsistently, or irrelevantly with traditional gender stereotypes. ICAT learning was superior in the stereotype-consistent and stereotype-inconsistent conditions compared to the stereotype-irrelevant conditions. These results demonstrate that category relevance moderates category accessibility. Implications for social categorization and stereotype change models are discussed. © The Author(s) 2010.

Three experiments examined the relationship between prejudice and processing of stereotypic information. Higher levels of prejudice were associated with greater attention to and more thorough encoding of stereotype-inconsistent than stereotype-consistent behaviors but only when processing capacity was plentiful (Experiments 1 and 3). High-prejudice participants attributed consistent behaviors to internal factors and inconsistent behaviors to external forces (Experiment 2). Together, these results suggest that high-prejudice people attend carefully to inconsistent behaviors to explain them away but only if they have sufficient resources to do so. Results also showed that low-prejudice but not high-prejudice participants formed individuated impressions by integrating the implications of the target's behaviors (i.e., individuating). High levels of prejudice appear to be associated with biased encoding and judgment processes that may serve to maintain stereotypes.

In attempting to inhibit their stereotypes, suppressors may direct greater attention toward the very behaviors whose influence they seek to avoid. In an empirical demonstration of this effect, some participants were instructed to suppress their use of stereotypes while forming impressions of an Asian woman who revealed stereotypical and nonstereotypical behaviors. Unlike a control group who merely formed impressions, these suppressors later recognized stereotypical behaviors significantly more accurately than nonstereotypical behaviors. Because memory was assessed with a recognition measure, these findings minimize the possibility that the results were due to differential reliance on stereotype-based retrieval cues by suppressors and non-suppressors. These findings have important implications for people's ability to successfully avoid stereotyping others.

In two experiments, we investigated the relationships among stereotype strength, processing capacity, and the allocation of attention to stereotype-consistent versus stereotype-inconsistent information describing a target person. The results of both experiments showed that, with full capacity, greater stereotype strength was associated with increased attention toward stereotype-consistent versus stereotype-inconsistent information. However, when capacity was diminished, greater stereotype strength was associated with increased attention toward inconsistent versus consistent information. Thus, strong stereotypes may act as self-confirming filters when processing capacity is plentiful, but as efficient information gathering devices that maximize the acquisition of novel (disconfirming) information when capacity is depleted. Implications for models of stereotyping and stereotype change are discussed.

How do people respond to information that counters a stereotype? Do they approach it or avoid it? Four experiments showed that attention to stereotype-consistent vs. -inconsistent information depends on people's implicit theories about human traits. Those holding an entity theory (the belief that traits are fixed) consistently displayed greater attention to (Experiments 1 and 4) and recognition of (Experiments 2 and 3) consistent information. whereas those holding an incremental (dynamic) theory tended to display greater attention to (Experiment 1) and recognition of (Experiment 3) inconsistent information. This was true whether implicit theories were measured as chronic structures (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) or were experimentally manipulated (Experiment 3). Thus, different a priori assumptions about human traits and behavior lead to processing that supports versus limits stereotype maintenance.