The overall goal of this project is to gain greater insight into the processes underlying prejudice and discrimination. In particular, the proposed research seeks to gain insight by which people use their expectations about social groups (e.g., Blacks, women, Hispanics) as a basis for responding to single individuals who belong to these categories. An organizing assumption of the project is that such stereotyping effects depend on at least three factors, including characteristics of (a) the perceiver who may potentially apply these stereotypes, (b) the situation in which the stereotype is activated, and (c) characteristics of the person who is being judged by the perceiver. For example, the extent to which a perceiver may, or may not, stereotype a particular minority person is likely to depend on (a) the values and attitudes of the perceiver, (b) the specific context in which the person is being judged, and (c) the individuating features that are known about this particular minority member. A major focus of the research is on the extent to which these stereotyping effects are mediated by conscious or unconscious processes. Psychologists have just recently begun to explore the possibility that stereotyping effects involve mechanisms about which people may only be dimly aware, if at all. This perspective is vitally important, because it provides a way of understanding an apparent contradiction in present-day American society. For example, although many Whites realize that stereotyping Blacks is inappropriate, there is a wealth of evidence showing that stereotypes nevertheless continue to exert a powerful effect on social behavior, even among the very same Whites who believe that stereotyping is wrong. A major aim of the present project is to gain clarity into these and other important aspects of the processes underlying prejudice and discrimination.
