Automatic stereotyping: Category, trait, and behavioral activations

On the basis of theorizing that proposes that category representations include a variety of associations and not simply trait information, two studies investigated whether the automatic activation of stereotypic traits following category priming is a necessary mediator of automatic social behavior. The results across both studies demonstrated an automatic behavior effect; participants primed with the elderly responded more slowly to general lexical decisions than participants not p-rimed with the elderly. The results also provide evidence for automatic stereotypic trait activation; participants primed with the elderly responded faster to stereotypic than nonstereotypic traits. Moreover; consistent with the view that stereotypes are multicomponential, category priming predicted automatic social behavior in ways independent of mediation-by-trait activation.