Two studies investigated the psychological underpinnings of racial nonbias, defined as extremely low or null bias on measures of implicit and explicit racial attitudes. Study 1 demonstrated that racially nonbiased Whites showed differential susceptibility to affective conditioning compared with participants with more ordinary levels of bias. A significant two-way interaction emerged, indicating that nonbiased individuals were significantly less likely than ordinary individuals to acquire negative affect to neutral stimuli in a classical conditioning paradigm, but were more likely to acquire positive affect to neutral stimuli. Study 2 replicated this pattern of findings using a procedure in which the identification of nonbiased Whites was facilitated by their nomination by an African American acquaintance. Implications for bias formation and prejudice reduction are discussed.

Two studies apply intergroup image theory to better understand divergent interethnic images and to highlight the important role of intergroup context and perceived intergroup relations in shaping the content of social stereotypes. Image theory hypothesizes that specific interethnic stereotypes arise from specific patterns of perceived intergroup competition, relative power, and relative cultural status. Results from surveying Black, White, and Native Americans’ appraisals of intergroup relations and reported outgroup stereotypes in various intergroup contexts suggest that the content of outgroup stereotypes varies systematically as a function of the perceived state of intergroup relations and the intergroup context in which these groups are situated. The data reported from both studies establish the importance of examining social stereotypes from a functional perspective in the context of intergroup relations.

According to self-monitoring theory (Snyder, 1987), high self-monitors tailor their self-presentation for the sake of desired public appearances,whereas low self- monitors are relatively unlikely to practice such situationally guided impression management strategies. It was therefore predicted that, when asked to publicly express their attitudes regarding a social group, high self-monitors would modify their expressive behaviour in a direction consistent with the attitudes attributed to their audience. Conversely, low self-monitors would be unaffected by their audience's attitude towards this group. A study was conducted to test this hypothesis: participants, whose level of self-monitoring and prejudice towards homosexuals had been previously measured, were asked to report their thoughts regarding this group in an open-ended manner. They anticipated discussing these thoughts with an audience perceived as either prejudiced or tolerant,or they expected that their responses would remain private. In line with predictions, high self-monitors expressed more prejudice when the audience was perceived as prejudiced than tolerant, whereas low self-monitors were not affected by the audience's attitude.

The present paper examines the relationship between Blacks' implicit and explicit racial attitudes and the extent to which perceived negativity from out-groups moderates the two attitudes. Results from two studies provide converging evidence that perceived negativity is related to both implicit and explicit attitudes, but in opposite directions. While perceived negativity showed a significant positive correlation with in-group bias on explicit measures, it was negatively correlated with in-group bias on implicit measures, such that Blacks who believed that Whites generally dislike Blacks showed significantly lower levels of implicit in-group bias compared with African Americans who believe that Whites positively regard Blacks. African Americans' level of exposure to out-groups was also negatively related to implicit in-group bias, but this relationship was mediated by perceived negativity.

Results from 5 experiments provide converging evidence that automatic evaluation of faces in sequential priming paradigms reflects affective responses to phenotypic features per se rather than evaluation of the racial categories to which the faces belong. Experiment 1 demonstrates that African American facial primes with racially prototypic physical features facilitate more automatic negative evaluations than do other Black faces that are unambiguously categorizable as African American but have less prototypic features. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 further support the hypothesis that these differences reflect direct affective responses to physical features rather than differential categorization. Experiment 5 shows that automatic responses to facial primes correlate with cue-based but not category-based explicit measures of prejudice. Overall, these results suggest the existence of 2 distinct types of prejudice.

The existing literature on attitudes and social perception provides ample confirmation of the impact of physical appearance on social judgment and evaluation outcomes. The present article investigates the extent to which these robust findings are moderated by stable individual differences in the tendency to rely on external stimulus qualities in forming social impressions. Study 1 introduces the Perceptual Reliance Index (PRI) and provides psychometric data on the measure. Study 2 shows that high PRI participants make significantly different social evaluations for targets of high versus low physical attractiveness, whereas low PRI participants do not. Study 3 further extends these findings by demonstrating that within-race variations in phenotypic appearance (e.g., skin color, facial features) produce differential priming effects for high but not low PRI participants. Such systematic bias in social judgment on the basis of physical cues alone suggests the existence of a purely perceptual-based form of prejudice.

This research assessed the relative importance of two distinct interpersonal dimensions in leader emergence, namely “social” and “prosocial” orientations. We define social individuals as those who are interpersonally engaging and socially skilled (e.g., outgoing, extraverted) and prosocial individuals as those who seek to promote the welfare of others (e.g., helpful, generous). Participants in Study 1 were asked directly which qualities they want in an ideal leader and indicated a strong preference for prosocial over social traits. Participants in Study 2 interacted face-to-face in small groups and then were given the opportunity to select a leader to allocate resources. Participants assigned more weight to social as compared with prosocial traits as indicated by their voting behavior. Participants’ tendency to weigh social information more heavily when selecting a leader was mediated by the potential leader’s perceived status. Study 2 further demonstrated that sociability was negatively associated with benevolent behavior among elected leaders whereas prosociability was positively associated with leader benevolence. Taken together, these findings support the existence of a paradoxical tendency for people to elect social, high-status leaders, despite their stated preference for prosocial leaders, and despite the fact that social leaders are more likely than prosocial leaders to abuse their power by behaving selfishly when allocating resources.