Implicit stereotyping in person judgment.

Three experiments demonstrated implicit gender stereotyping. A target's social category determined the use of previously primed stereotyped information, without Ss' awareness of such influence. After unscrambling sentences describing neutral or stereotyped behaviors about dependence or aggression, Ss evaluated a female or male target. Although ratings of female and male targets did not differ after exposure to neutral primes, Ss exposed to dependence primes rated a female target as more dependent than a male target who performed identical behaviors (Experiment 1A). Likewise, Ss rated a male, but not a female, target as more aggressive after exposure to aggression primes compared with neutral primes (Experiment IB). Experiment 2 replicated the implicit stereotyping effect and additionally showed no relationship between explicit memory for primes and judgment of target's dependence. I consider extremely fruitful this idea that social life should be explained, not by the notions of those who participate in it, but by more profound causes which are unperceived by consciousness, and I think also that these causes are to be sought mainly in the manner according to which the associated individuals are grouped. —Emile Durkheim (1897, translation in Winch, 1958, pp. 23-24) Essential to social psychology is the question of how people are evaluated. Hence, social psychologists have placed person judgment at the center of the research agenda of the discipline. Among the various components of person judgment is the process of stereotyping, whereby beliefs about a social group are used in judgments of the group or individual members of the group. Because stereotyped judgments simplify and justify social reality, they are among the most fundamental psychological events that determine the course of social relations. Our approach to stereotyping draws on theoretical analyses of unconscious processes that have emerged in contemporary writing about cognition. In particular, we build on recent observations and experimental discoveries that (a) unconscious influences on behavior are common rather than rare (Greenwald & Banaji, 1993; Jacoby & Kelley, 1987), (b) examining the processes involved in unconscious learning and memory can advance the understanding of social behavior (Bargh, 1984; Lewicki & Hill, 1987; Smith, in press), and (c) stereotypes and attitudes can operate unconsciously (Banaji & Greenwald, in press; Bargh, 1992; Bargh, Chaiken, Govender, & Pratto, 1992;