EFFECTS OF ATYPICAL EXEMPLARS ON RACIAL BELIEFS - ENLIGHTENED RACISM OR GENERALIZED APPRAISALS

Although African-Americans as a group are economically disadvantaged c ompared to the white majority group, there are numerous salient counte rexamples of black affluence. How do media images of highly successful African-Americans affect Whites' beliefs about the economic or politi cal status of African-Americans as a whole? Three experiments are repo rted that begin to address this question by surreptitiously activating thoughts about specific exemplars of African-American success and obs erving the consequences for a measure of perceived discrimination agai nst Blacks. Contrary to the Enlightened Racism perspective, which clai ms that images of affluent African-Americans are taken by white audien ces as evidence of a lack of discriminatory barriers to black success. Experiment 1 revealed that prior activation of a successful, well-lik ed black exemplar resulted in increased perceptions of discrimination in contemporary society. Experiment 2 replicated this effect and showe d further that it is limited to successful exemplars who are well like d; successful exemplars about whom subjects had more neutral attitudes did not produce any changes in perceptions of discrimination. Finally , Experiment 3 showed that the effect of successful, well-liked exempl ars vanishes when people first think about the fact that the exemplars are atypical members of the group. These findings are discussed in te rms of a generalized appraisal process in which momentarily salient ou tgroup exemplars influence intergroup attitudes, which in turn affect judgments and beliefs about the group via an attitude heuristic. (C) 1 995 Academic Press, Inc.