The effect of stereotypical thought suppression on a cognitive task.

The effect of stereotypical thought suppression on a cognitive task. The pu rpose of this study was to prove the effect of conscious suppression of ste reotypical thoughts in people's answers to a cognitive task. To that end, t he experimental group were asked to imagine a day in the life of an afro-ca ribbean person shown on a photograph, trying to avoid the group stereotype at any time, that is, repressing any stereotypical ideas. Afterwards, the e xperimental group as well as a control group, completed a cognitive task in which, first of all, the ethnic group label, "black" or "white", appeared and then, stereotypical characteristics of both racial groups appeared. For this task, the reaction time of each association label (prime)-characteris tics was measured. In addition, each subject answered a questionnaire on im plicit theories over the racial differences. The results showed that the ex perimental group responded significantly quicker when the ethnic label "bla ck" was being followed by the stereotypical characteristics of the group, w hile this pattern was not reproduced by the control group, whose answers we re more in accord with their beliefs about racial differences. The results are discussed according to various models of thought supression and the dis sociation model developed by Divine (1989).