Reactions to a Black Professional Motivated Inhibition and Activation of Conflicting Stereotypes

• Published in: Journal of personality and social psychology Vol. 77; no. 5; pp. 885 - 904
• Main Authors: Sinclair, Lisa, Kunda, Ziva
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Psychological Association 01-11-1999
• Subjects: Adult; African Americans - psychology; Attitude; Biological and medical sciences; Black People; Black White Relations; Blacks; Canada; Competence; European Continental Ancestry Group - psychology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Human Males; Humans; Impression Formation; Inhibition (Psychology); Male; Males; Manitoba; Motivation; Physicians; Prejudice; Professional Competence; Professional Personnel; Professional workers; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Race Relations - psychology; Racial and Ethnic Attitudes; Racism; Social Attitudes; Social attribution, perception and cognition; Social Behavior; Social Perception; Social psychology; Stereotyped Attitudes; Stereotypes; Undergraduate Students; White People; Canada; Impression formation; Human; Social perception; Motivation; Attitude; Race; Stereotype
• ISSN: 0022-3514; 1939-1315
• DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.77.5.885

The motivation to form a particular impression of an individual can prompt the inhibition of applicable stereotypes that contradict one's desired impression and the activation and application of stereotypes that support it. Participants, especially those high in prejudice, inhibited the Black stereotype when motivated to esteem a Black individual (because he had praised them). Participants motivated to esteem a Black doctor also activated the doctor stereotype. In contrast, participants motivated to disparage a Black doctor (because he had criticized them) inhibited the doctor stereotype. Participants motivated to disparage a Black individual also applied the Black stereotype to him, rating him as relatively incompetent. All these effects were driven by the self-protective motives of recipients of feedback from Black evaluators; detached observers showed no such effects.