RACISM AND RACIAL CATEGORIZATION

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.