Influence of Social Category Accessibility and Category-Associated Trait Accessibility on Judgments of Individuals

Two experiments investigated the effects of priming either a social category label or category-associated traits on the categorization of individuals who could be considered members of either of two competing social categories. It was hypothesized that priming a social category label would increase the use of the primed category in categorization judgments, whereas priming category-associated traits along with the category label would decrease the use of the primed category. Supporting these hypotheses, the results of two experiments showed that categorization judgments were assimilated to the primed category when only the category label was primed, but were contrasted away from the primed category when category-associated traits were primed along with the category label. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for social categorization and social stereotyping.