THE SPONTANEOUS SUPPRESSION OF RACIAL STEREOTYPES

Attempts to suppress social stereotypes often lead to an increase in t he 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 nat uralistic 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. Participant s in the spontaneous suppression condition were informed that the stud y was being conducted by an African-American political group. The resu lts indicated that participants in the spontaneous suppression conditi on wrote less stereotypic stories than did those in the control condit ion. Participants in Experiment 2 first rated their attitudes toward A frican 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 impres sion of a target person who behaved in an ambiguously hostile manner. The results indicated that participants in both the directed suppressi on and the spontaneous suppression conditions judged the target person to be significantly more hostile (i.e., stereotypic of African Americ ans) than did participants in the control condition. These results ind icate that there are situational factors which motivate spontaneous st ereotype-suppression attempts, leading to later increases in stereotyp e use.