Citation

Payne BK. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 2001; 81(2): 181-192.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA. bkpayne@artsci.wustl.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2001, American Psychological Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

11519925

Abstract

Two experiments used a priming paradigm to investigate the influence of racial cues on the perceptual identification of weapons. In Experiment 1, participants identified guns faster when primed with Black faces compared with White faces. In Experiment 2, participants were required to respond quickly, causing the racial bias to shift from reaction time to accuracy. Participants misidentified tools as guns more often when primed with a Black face than with a White face. L. L. Jacoby's (1991) process dissociation procedure was applied to demonstrate that racial primes influenced automatic (A) processing, but not controlled (C) processing. The response deadline reduced the C estimate but not the A estimate. The motivation to control prejudice moderated the relationship between explicit prejudice and automatic bias. Implications are discussed on applied and theoretical levels.