Prejudice and Stereotype Maintenance Processes: Attention, Attribution, and Individuation.

Three experiments examined the relationship between prejudice and processing of stereotypic information. Higher levels of prejudice were associated with greater attention to and more thorough encoding of stereotype-inconsistent than stereotype-consistent behaviors but only when processing capacity was plentiful (Experiments 1 and 3). High-prejudice participants attributed consistent behaviors to internal factors and inconsistent behaviors to external forces (Experiment 2). Together, these results suggest that high-prejudice people attend carefully to inconsistent behaviors to explain them away but only if they have sufficient resources to do so. Results also showed that low-prejudice but not high-prejudice participants formed individuated impressions by integrating the implications of the target's behaviors (i.e., individuating). High levels of prejudice appear to be associated with biased encoding and judgment processes that may serve to maintain stereotypes

Agent-based modeling: A new approach for theory-building in social psychology

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Dynamic, Multidirectional Flows of Influence Within Social Networks

On behalf of

Encoding Flexibility Revisited: Evidence for Enhanced Encoding of Stereotype-Inconsistent Information Under Cognitive Load

This experiment tested two key components of the Encoding Flexibility Model of stereotyping. Results demonstrated that a cognitive load increased the attention paid to stereotype-inconsistent information, and decreased the attention paid to stereotype-consistent information. Cognitive load also enhanced the perceptual encoding of inconsistent information while diminishing the perceptual encoding of consistent information. Implications of these results for the role of efficiency and the interaction of motivation and ability in social cognition are discussed

Stereotype Strength and Attentional Bias: Preference for Confirming versus Disconfirming Information Depends on Processing Capacity.

In two experiments, we investigated the relationships among stereotype strength, processing capacity, and the allocation of attention to stereotype-consistent versus stereotype-inconsistent information describing a target person. The results of both experiments showed that, with full capacity, greater stereotype strength was associated with increased attention toward stereotype-consistent versus stereotype-inconsistent information. However, when capacity was diminished, greater stereotype strength was associated with increased attention toward inconsistent versus consistent information. Thus, strong stereotypes may act as self-confirming filters when processing capacity is plentiful, but as efficient information gathering devices that maximize the acquisition of novel (disconfirming) information when capacity is depleted. Implications for models of stereotyping and stereotype change are discussed