Social identity theory predicts that perceivers strongly identified wi
th an in-group will maximize the distinction and maintain a clear boun
dary between their own and other groups by categorizing others' member
ship accurately. Two experiments tested the prediction that racially p
rejudiced individuals, who presumably identify highly with their racia
l in-group, are more motivated to make accurate racial categorizations
than nonprejudiced individuals. Results indicated that prejudiced par
ticipants not only took longer to categorize race-ambiguous targets (E
xperiments 1 and 2), but also made more nonverbal vocalizations when p
resented with them (Experiment 1), suggesting response hesitation. The
results support the hypothesis that, compared to nonprejudiced indivi
duals, prejudiced individuals concern themselves with accurate identif
ication of in-group and out-group members and use caution when making
racial categorizations.