CATEGORIZATION BY RACE - THE IMPACT OF AUTOMATIC AND CONTROLLED COMPONENTS OF RACIAL PREJUDICE

The present research examined the influence of both automatic and cont rolled processes related to racial prejudice on the categorization of stimulus persons by race. Participants judged the similarity of photos of individuals who varied in race, gender, and occupation. These simi larity ratings were subjected to a multidimensional scaling procedure. The degree to which individuals weighted race in judging similarity w as found to increase as a function of the extent to which race was att itude-evoking for the individual and to decrease as a function of moti vation to control seemingly prejudiced reactions. It is suggested that the attention of individuals for whom attitudes were automatically ac tivated in response to Black faces was automatically drawn to the race information, but that individuals motivated to control prejudiced rea ctions actively resisted weighting race heavily. Examination of the la tencies with which the similarity judgments were made provided support for this account of the process underlying categorization by race. (C ) 1997 Academic Press.