Saying No to Negativity: The Effects of Context and Motivation to Control Prejudice on Automatic Evaluative Responses

The current research explored the interaction of context and motivation to control prejudice reactions (MCPR) on automatic evaluative responses toward individuals of different races. Three studies incorporated contextual backgrounds into an evaluative priming procedure. Across all three studies, White participants low in MCPR demonstrated automatic ingroup biases when threatening contexts were presented. However, in contexts where targets could be construed as threatening, Whites high in MCPR showed automatic outgroup biases in favor of Blacks over Whites. Importantly, this outgroup bias was driven by an automatic inhibition of negative responses toward Blacks. The results indicate that even at the automatic level, people high in motivation to control prejudice can inhibit negative responses toward Blacks in contexts that have cues associated with prejudice.