The effect of stereotypical thought suppression on a cognitive task.

The effect of stereotypical thought suppression on a cognitive task. The purpose of this study was to prove the effect of conscious suppression of stereotypical thoughts in people's answers to a cognitive task. To that end, the experimental group were asked to imagine a day in the life of an afro-caribbean person shown on a photograph, trying to avoid the group stereotype at any time, that is, repressing any stereotypical ideas. Afterwards, the experimental group as well as a control group, completed a cognitive task in which, first of all, the ethnic group label, "black" or "white", appeared and then, stereotypical characteristics of both racial groups appeared. For this task, the reaction time of each association label (prime)-characteristics was measured. In addition, each subject answered a questionnaire on implicit theories over the racial differences. The results showed that the experimental group responded significantly quicker when the ethnic label "black" was being followed by the stereotypical characteristics of the group, while this pattern was not reproduced by the control group, whose answers were more in accord with their beliefs about racial differences. The results are discussed according to various models of thought supression and the dissociation model developed by Divine (1989).